Attack of the Valentines!
by Rose's.wings
Summary: Iacon is overrun by a storm of little red hearts as the younglings adopt a new tradition from their human caretaker: Valentines! Far from a storm of sweetness, chaos takes root. Will love n'friendship smooth things over? Or will it just make things worse?
1. Chapter 1: Little Red Hearts of Doom

XP Ah! Another story! What am I thinking? I'm thinking it's only a week long that's what I'm thinking. My goal is to post a chapter a day until Valentine's Day next Tuesday and I've got each chapter thought out already, but still, we'll see how it goes. Cross your fingers and make a wish!

For those that don't know what's going on, this is connected with my longer story _I Lost A World!_ probably somewhere around chapter 18 where there's all those time gaps. This runs in the vein of my New Year's fic, _Bang, Flash, Boom!_ with it's human influences turning into the antics of a group of rambunctious younglings. Only this time the madness spreads! Whee! Expect fluff n' fun for the next seven days. I luv you guys and feel free to leave me some reviews!

And now I must go and finish a project that's due in about an hour. AHHH! Why do I do this to myself? *wallows in self inflicted misery for two seconds* I now leave Mrs. Mittens in charge until then. Bye!

^..^

Attack of the Valentines!

~ aka: Valentine's Sweetness ~

~^..^~

Little Red Hearts of Doom

~^..^~

If there was one thing young human Aria missed about her home planet, it was the holidays. She sighed as she thought of the festive, merry atmosphere of Christmas, the excitement of New Year's, and the deviousness she always looked forward to Halloween with.

From her place lying on the countertop in what passed for the nursery, Aria gave another sigh and listlessly continued doodling little hearts along the inside cover of her diary. She was lying on her stomach, stretched out on the flat surface, chin propped up by one hand and her feet idly kicking in the air. It was coming on Valentine's Day now and she missed that too.

Well, it wasn't _really_ almost Valentine's Day, at least, not that she knew of. Aria found that it was impossible to coincide the Cybertronian calendar with her own Earthly one, but she _felt_ like it should be Valentine's Day soon, and that was good enough for her, especially since there were no other humans around to argue with her.

"I don't know why I even bother missing this one." Aria murmured to herself as she went over the lines of another heart with her pen. "It's not like I ever had a boyfriend." She rethought her statement. "Well, at least not a serious one. And I never had one on Valentine's Day anyway. It's still just another Tuesday…or whatever day it's on this year anyway." She mumbled sullenly to herself just like any other young person that was single on February 14.

Aria was so caught up in her dejected mumbling that she didn't notice when a large pair of bright, baby blue eyes carefully rose over the edge of the counter to peer at her. They were obviously _not_ human eyes, seeing as each one was about the size of Aria's hand, fingers outstretched and everything. They glowed like blue headlights, throwing Aria's shadow out from her small body. They were also set into a mechanized face that was youthful despite its size. Large fingers appeared on the countertop to help the being watching Aria keep his balance.

The glowing eyes watched Aria a long moment, but when she didn't notice them, they blinked.

"What are you doing Jie Mei?"

Aria looked over at the voice, slightly startled, but she relaxed when she saw the robot peering at her over the countertop.

"Oh, hey 'Bee. Nothing much. What are you doing? I though you guys were paying hide-and-seek." She said, rolling over slightly to check on the scene beyond and below her perch. Six other little bots were gathered in the middle of their playroom. She frowned when she saw that four of them – Val, Fastlane, Skids, and Mudflap – were arguing over something. The other two, Arcee and Cloudraker, were standing off to the side, watching crossly.

Next to her, Bumblebee just shrugged, and then nearly fell out of sight as his balance wobbled. "Skids and Mudflap cheated." He told her calmly as he went up on his tip-toes again so he could see her. "What are _you_ doing?" He asked, seeing the open journal on the counter in front of her. His adoptive older sister usually wrote when she was watching them but not playing with them, but she hadn't been writing those strange little symbols organics made to remember stuff.

Aria looked back down at her pocket sized notebook. "Huh? Oh," she spotted the hearts that spread across the inner cover like bubbles drifting through water, "they're hearts. You like 'em?" She asked, smiling slightly as she held up the book so Bumblebee could see them better.

The little (compared to the adults anyway) yellow bot squinted at the hearts. He had heard Jie Mei say that word before. "Organic pumps look funny." He said eventually, his optics disappearing below the countertop as he gave his feet a break.

Aria shuffled over to the edge and, still on her stomach, folded her arms under her chin so she could look down at her _di di_.

"Well, organic pumps don't really look like this. They're about this big," she cupped a hand in front of her where Bumblebee could see, "and more round and squishy and, eh, gross," she said with a somewhat disgusted look at her hand as she pictured a real heart sitting there. She wrinkled her nose and rubbed her palm quickly on her pant leg. "These hearts are more like the ones you find on cards, since they're prettier and not…wet." Aria's nose wrinkled slightly again at the thought.

Bumblebee blinked again, trying to absorb Aria's explanation. "Cards," he said slowly, "you mean like that thing you gave me when I got sick?" He asked, his little optics lighting up more than before.

"Organics send each other cards with pumps on them?" Arcee asked as she came over, bored with the fight that was going nowhere. "Ew, gross!"

Aria laughed. "No, not like that. These hearts are cute. There's even a holiday where you give them to people you like, to show affection." Aria told them.

Arcee thought about this. "You mean like how Chromia likes Mister Ironhide, or Skids and Mudflap like each other?" She asked innocently enough.

But her words were enough to break up the fight that was brewing on the other side of the room. "What?" Skids demanded loudly, ignoring Val and Fastlane in front of him. "I don't like him!" He shoved his brother.

Mudflap shoved back, but he was glaring over at Arcee. "Yeah, that's gross. He's weird."

Skids glared at Mudflap. "I am not! And besides you're stupid!"

"I am not! You are!"

"Nuh-uh!"

Arcee rolled her optics at the pair. "They're both stupid." She grumbled under her breath.  
>"Arcee," Aria admonished her with a slight frown at the only femme out of the seven younglings.<p>

The pink femme glanced guiltily down at the floor. "Well they are." She said, her voice even lower then before.

Bumblebee agreed with her, even if he liked the twins well enough. If they would think things through every once in a while maybe they wouldn't have this kind of reputation, but oh well.

"What about the cards Jie Mei. Who do you give them too?" The yellow mech jumped in quickly to take Jie Mei's frown off of Arcee.

For a cycle it didn't look like it worked, but then with a look that clearly said they would talk about this later, Aria looked over at Bumblebee. "Well, yeah, couples like Ironhide and Chromia would give each other Valentine's Day cards. Sometimes friends and family do it too though."

"Can we try?" Bumblebee asked, leaning upward again. "I want to color a card."

"Yeah, I want to color too!" Arcee said excitedly, trying to pull herself up high enough to get her chin on the counter.

"Color?" Cloudraker's head snapped up, blue optics zeroing in on Aria from across the room. He darted over and put his little hands on the counter too. "I want to color!" He said eagerly.

It was like a magic word. As soon as Cloudraker spoke, Fastlane and Val perked up at the word and joined the rest of the group by the counter, abandoning the twins to carry on the fight alone.

"Can we color too Jie Mei?" Val asked, not needing to even try to look over the heads of the others to see what Aria was doing.

"Yeah, what are we coloring?" Fastlane asked as Cloudraker began to jump up and down excitedly.

Aria put her hands up to stem the wave of excitement. _"No matter where you go, kids will have markers and the desire to use them."_ She thought as she smiled at the younglings.

"Alright, alright," she said as they continued to ask her questions, "you can make some cards, just let me go get the markers-Hey!" She yelled suddenly, making the younglings jump. But she wasn't glaring at them. "Skids! What did I tell you about biting? Now both of you knock it off!" She demanded as she hopped down the makeshift stairs Ariel had set up for her earlier and strode purposely towards the bickering twins.

Bumblebee and Arcee shared a look.

"She's going to be for_ever_." Val said, turning to mildly glare at the twins as Aria got between them, trusting them not to step on her or anything.

"I'm going to get the markers." Arcee said, feeling impatient.

"Then I'll get the paper." 'Bee said. It would take Jie Mei a while to get the twins calmed down anyway.

~^..^~

"Mine's going to be the bestest!" Fastlane, always competitive, crowed as he scribbled on his overly large piece of paper. Five minutes and one broken up fight later, all of the younglings were lying in a circle on the floor, each with a sheet of paper in front of them. The alien equivalent of markers were all piled in the very middle so they wouldn't argue about who got to use which one.

Aria had moved to the youngling sized table so she could watch them better while they were (temporarily) preoccupied. It had surprised her at first when she found out that the bots still used paper when they had all these electronic gizmos that were almost as advanced as they were, but then Jazz had told her that the only thing they used it for was when they needed to put up detour signs, and the surprised feeling went away.

She also no longer felt bad when she stole paper from the storage room for the younglings to draw all over.

_"It's better than the walls at any rate."_ She thought as she leaned over the edge of the table to see how the younglings were doing.

"So who're you going to give yours too 'Bee?" Aria asked as she watched him draw a yellow and green cloud above what looked like a zebra with brown and purple polka dots on the inside of the folded paper.

The yellow youngling looked up at her and blinked his bright blue optics at her curiously. "You mean I have to give it to somebody else?" He asked, sounding surprised.

Aria looked over at him. "Well, I guess you don't _have_ to, but that's generally what you do with cards. You give them to people to make them feel better or to tell them something special."

"Oh…" Bumblebee said somewhat disappointed he had to give his away.

"Something special…" Arcee mumbled thoughtfully next to him.

"I'm going to make one for Cloudcover then!" Cloudraker exclaimed grabbing the blue marker, presumably so he could draw his guardian flying in the sky.

"Yeah? Well _I'm _making one for Sideswipe." His brother Fastlane said almost defiantly.

Val looked over at him. "Why? You don't even talk to him a lot."

"So?" Fastlane said, keeping his eyes on the silver blob that Aria now saw was holding a gun that looked suspiciously like Sideswipe's. "He's cool. He does all these awesome tricks and _never _gets caught."

Bumblebee looked up at the other youngling. "He's in the brig right now for messing up Wheeljack's tools on purpose."

Val giggled deviously. "I heard that Wheeljack's lab still only has two and a half walls."

Cloudraker slanted the bigger boy a look. "And this is new…how?"

Val shrugged as he picked up the green marker.

"I'm going to do one for Wheeljack." Mudflap decided a cycle later as he grabbed a new sheet of paper. "Dear…Wheeljack…" he started to write in his clumsy, grade school way.

"Well if you're giving one to Sideswipe then I'm giving mine to Ultra Magnus." Val said proudly.

"…thank you...for…not…blooowiiiiing…" Mudflap sounded out the troublesome word.

Fastlane laughed at Val. "Yeah, right, like he'd read it anyway."

"He would too!" Val yelled back.

"…us up…intooo…" Mudflap finally paused and looked up at Aria, "Hey Jie Mei, how do you spell 'smithereens'?"

"Hey Mudflap," Bumblebee spoke up from his spot across the circle from one of the smallest younglings, "if you're giving one to Wheeljack are you giving one to Ratchet too?"

"Or what about Mister Prowl?" Cloudraker asked, always trying to be fair.

The others looked at them like they were nuts. Even Fastlane and Val stopped their bickering to stare.

"Nah…" Mudflap and Skids finally said at once. Then the four boys laughed at the other two.

Feeling a bit embarrassed now, Bumblebee ducked his head and halfheartedly colored in one of his poor imitations of the bumpy things he had seen Aria drawing in her notebook. Cloudraker just smacked his brother and went back to his card, glaring as he unsteadily drew the outline of his guardian on the card with a gray marker.

Soon enough Bumblebee couldn't stand staying quiet any longer. "I'm going to give mine to Miss Ariel 'cuz she read me that story yesterday when I didn't feel so good." He said quietly, just incase no one was really listening. Then he turned to the femme lying next to him. "Who are you giving yours to Arcee?" He asked her.

For a moment it looked like she was going to stay quiet and continue determinedly ignoring the rest of them. All of the other little mechs turned to stare at the only femmeling too, waiting for an answer.

"Hmm…" the little femme eventually hummed thoughtfully, tapping the end of her pink marker against her chin. Then her optics lit up as she hit an idea. "I got it!" She cried excitedly, but she didn't say anything else as she stuck her head down next to her drawing, hiding it from view with her hands.

Mudflap leaned over slowly to try and sneak a glance past Arcee's hand, but she looked up and glared at him, making him retreat or risk getting bit again. With an indignant huff, the little femme stood up, making sure to keep her card where none of the boys could see it.

"I'm not telling. So there." She told them smartly, and then she turned and left the room.

There was a brief moment of silence as the boys blinked at the door as it swiftly slid shut behind her.

"What's her problem?" Val finally asked as he turned back to his drawing. The rest of them either shook their heads or grumbled, "Beats me."

Aria bit her lip to keep from grinning. _"They're so cute when they don't know anything."_ She cooed in her mind.

"I think I'm going to give mine to Jazz. He's cool." Cloudraker said a moment later.

"But I thought you were giving it to Cloudcover?" Bumblebee pointed out.

Cloudraker looked up. "Oh yeah." He looked up at Aria with a somewhat worried look. "Hey Jie Mei? Can we make more then one of these things?" He asked, holding his up over his head as best he could so she could see it.

Aria grinned at him lovingly. "Yeah, of course. You can make as many as you want. Or at least until the markers run out." She added the last sentence more to herself then Cloudraker.

The youngling just grinned and shouted. "Cool! Then I'm going to make lots!"

"Me too!" Fastlane yelled as they all got doubly busy.

Aria just grinned nervously down at the seven younglings. _"Oh boy, I think I just started a trend."_

* * *

><p><em><em>n_n<em> Hope you loved it! Tomorrow's fun includes...Sunny's Sorta Secret Admirer! XD Much love til then!_


	2. Chapter 2: Sunny's Sorta Secret Admirer

*Cackles gleefully* I have now finished my tormenting torture of Sunny. Mwuhahaha! And now the Valentine's Madness spreads to the adults! *cackles some more* If you couldn't tell by all the maniacal laughter I had _lots _of fun with this one. I think you'll love this next installment of what should be called in subtext 'Rose's attempt to torture bots with love, confetti, and Valentine's cards' or something like that anyway. :3 A BIG thank you goes out to my reviewers Vivian Hale, littledhampir 13, Suzumehime, and supergirlprime. You guys rock! Uh, and roll. xoxo ;P

...

Attack of the Valentines!

(aka: Valentine's Madness)

~^..^~

Sunny's Sorta Secret Admirer

~^..^~

"You ever get the feeling we're being watched?" Sideswipe carelessly asked Sunstreaker as they meandered down a hallway on their way out on patrols one orbit.

Sunstreaker rolled his optics at his brother. "That's because we _are_ being watched you idiot. Those kids have been following us ever since we left Prowl's office." He grumbled, carefully keeping an optic on the two brats following them. They just ducked behind another corner, like they'd done the past twenty cycles whenever one of the twins had gone to get a better look at the little bots tailing them. This time though, the gold painted mech caught sight of a pair of bright red speed lines painted on the set of small grey wings.

"It's those two seeker runts." Sunstreaker all but growled. He wasn't exactly what one would call 'good with children'.

Sideswipe laughed, more at his brother's discomfort then the two kids trailing along behind them. "Ah relax Sunny, they're just a couple of younglings. They haven't even done anything."

Sunny slanted a glare at his brother, as much for the bright and shiny nickname as anything else. "Yet." He added.

Sideswipe grinned crookedly in agreement as he turned the corner.

Sunny rolled his optics again as he followed his brother around the bend in the hallway. Then he let out a yelp as Sideswipe grabbed his arm and yanked him against the wall.

"What the fra-" Sunstreaker started to shout.

"Shut up!" Sideswipe hissed, grinning downright manically as he leaned over to try and sneak a peek around the corner. Sunstreaker realized there was nothing he could do now but roll his optics again and vent a sigh. There was just no talking to Sides' when he had the look on his face. It was a clear sign of trouble.

There was an anticipatory silence, and then a little whisper came from around the corner.

"Where'd they go?" Asked one of the younglings. Sunstreaker thought it was the quieter one, Cloud-something-or-other, but he wasn't sure. He had never really bothered with this kind of information before. He barely knew his direct superior officer's name, much less the seven little gremlins that hung around that organic annoyance of Prime's.

"I dunno." The other one – Speedlane Sunstreaker thought certainly – answered his brother.

Next to him, Sideswipe started shaking with laughter. Sunstreaker thought he was getting far too much enjoyment out of this.

The first youngling groaned in disappointed frustration. "Man, we'll never get to give it to him now. They're probably already out of the city." He mumbled. A little thump echoed around the corner when he scuffed his foot angrily against the floor.

Sideswipe's head snapped up and Sunstreaker met his brother's optics. He knew the same thing was running through their minds.

_"Something for us?"_

"Cool," Sideswipe said, using one of the organic's words that had become popular around base as he stepped around his brother to see what the younglings wanted to give him. Sunstreaker gave a resigned sigh and briefly hung his head. Sideswipe could be so predictable sometimes, he thought.

But even though he wouldn't have admitted it, Sunstreaker was the slightest bit curious too, so he stepped around the corner and leaned one shoulder against the wall. Now he had a good view without actively showing he wanted to know what was going on. Win-win in his book.

"Hey there gremlins," Sideswipe greeted the younglings easily, "What's this I hear about something for me?"

The two smaller bots jumped a little when the older mech appeared out of nowhere, but they relaxed when they saw who it was.

The predominantly red boy, the one with the speed lines on his wings, grinned outright when he saw Sideswipe step in front of them. From his spot by the corner, Sunstreaker saw that the kid was holding some piece of paper in one hand. It looked like a card of some sort.

"We found you!" The kid cried, "I wanted to give this to you so-" he stopped in mid sentence, optics going wide as he realized something, and Sunstreaker realized that all hopes of finding out what the card was were about to fly out the window. "Hey! We're not gremlins!" The youngling yelled.

Sideswipe cocked his head and looked the two younglings up and down. "Well you're small and you pop up out of nowhere to cause trouble so…"

The one Sunstreaker had dubbed Speedlines (although the rest of the world called him Fastlane) crossed his arms over his chest and glared up at Sideswipe. But this time Cloudboy, (Cloudraker's label was infinitely worse) was the one who answered. "Well we _were_ going to give you a present because you can _sometimes_ be cool, but if you're going to be mean…" he let the rest hang.

Sunstreaker raised one optic ridge at the kid. _"Outright manipulation in a small package. Great. That bodes _so_ well for the future."_

Sideswipe just grinned at the kid, encouraging him, and held his hands up as if in surrender. "Alright, alright, I'm sorry I accurately compared you to an imp that shouldn't exist. Now what'd you get me?" He asked excitedly.

Sunstreaker snorted. _"He's worse then they are."_ He grumbled in his head.

Fastlane and Cloudraker glanced at each other, trying to decide if they still wanted to give it to him after that.

Fastlane held the card out to Sideswipe with a grin. "Here ya go!" He said happily. "I made it just for you."

Sideswipe crouched down and took the card. He shot the kids a questioning glance before opening it.

"'Dear Sideswipe,'" he read the thing out loud, "'you do cool things. I like how you printed-'"

"Painted," Fastlane corrected him.

"'-painted the brig green.'" He glanced up at the waiting boys briefly and grinned, "Yeah I liked that one too. Prowl went through the roof." He snickered before looking back down at the card. "'Happy Valentine's Day – Fastlane.' Gee guys this is-" he looked up at the little bots' hopeful expressions and faltered, "I actually have no idea what this is." He confessed.

"It's a Valentine," Cloudraker told him.

Sideswipe quirked an optic ridge at the younglings. "What's a…Valentine?" He asked carefully.

"Jie Mei told us about them." Fastlane said.

"Yeah, she says that you give them to bots you think are cool." Cloudraker clarified.

"Ah," Sideswipe nodded once in understanding, "it's an organic thing."

"Yep," Cloudraker said just as Fastlane muttered, "Uh-huh."

"Wow," Sideswipe said as he gave the brightly colored card another look, "cool guys. Thanks. You made a good choice in who here deserves Valentines." He told them with what passed for a wink.

The younger brothers smiled at the praise and then of all things, turned to leave.

"Hey!" Sunstreaker hollered, pushing away from the wall. The other three stopped and turned to stare at him. "What about me? Where's mine?" He asked irritably.

The younglings looked at each other. "We didn't make you one." Cloudraker finally answered.

"What?" Sunstreaker cried, louder then he meant.

"Yeah," Fastlane said snottily, "you don't get one 'cuz you're mean."

"I-" Sunstreaker actually stuttered, "I am not!"

Cloudraker gave the taller bot a flat look. "You call us gremlins."

"And sparklings." Fastlane crossed his arms over his small chest. This was the worst insult by far.

Sunstreaker was actually stunned speechless. He didn't even notice when Sideswipe coughed to try and hide his laughter.

After a cycle of wordlessly moving his mouth, Sunstreaker glared at the younger bots. "He called you gremlins too!" He protested, pointing at Sideswipe.

"Yeah, but he apologized." Fastlane pointed out.

"You didn't." Cloudraker returned Sunstreaker's glare.

"They've got a point bro." Sideswipe told him with a poorly hidden grin.

Sunstreaker narrowed his optics at Sideswipe. "Shut up." He growled. "And you two," he turned back to the younglings, "are _worse_ then sparklings. At least they can't talk." He snapped.

Cloudraker jerked back as if Sunstreaker's words had actually hurt him, but Fastlane clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Don't take it personally Cloud. Sunshine here is just mad because we noticed he's a mean ol' twit."

Sunstreaker glared at the talkative one harder, even if he didn't know what a twit was.

"Sunshine?" Sideswipe asked with a laugh, shooting down Sunstreaker's hopes for some assistance here. "He's more like a thundercloud that goes around zapping all the other rain clouds with lightning bolts."

Fastlane and Cloudraker laughed. Sunny just sunk deeper into his thundercloud mood.

The younglings turned to leave, but then as one final parting gift, Fastlane looked over at Sunstreaker and said smugly, "This is why he gets a Valentine and you don't. Bye Sides'!"

And then the two younglings scampered away, they're mischievous laughter echoing down the halls even after they'd disappeared.

Sunstreaker glared after them even when they were gone. "Gremlins." He grumbled darkly under his breath.

Sideswipe, true to his annoying self, just grinned as he straightened up. "Ah don't be like that Sunny, they're just kids. Truthfully that older one sorta reminded me of you way back when."

Sunstreaker's optics slowly swiveled over to pin his soon to be deceased brother with a chilling glare. "You every say that again; you die." He growled.

But even then Sideswipe refused to be intimidated. It was an infuriating character flaw he had. "You're just jealous because I got one and you didn't." He gloated as he walked back around the corner and shoved open the door at the other end of the hall with his shoulder. He gave Sunstreaker an intolerable grin, waved the card at him again, and then disappeared through the door with a mocking laugh.

Sunstreaker glared at the spot where Sideswipe had been. "Stupid head. We'll just see how long _that_ lasts." He muttered darkly before following his brother outside.

~^..^~

All of the younglings must have been busy because Valentine Madness quickly spread throughout the city like a red and pink plague. By the next morning, drawings with almost every mech in the city on at least one of them littered the walls, but only about three feet off the ground since that was as high as the young bots could reach.

Things got worse later in the orbit when Aria made the mistake of telling them about confetti. You could practically track the younglings from their playroom to everywhere else they had been in the building by following the thick trail of pink, red, and white shreds of paper they had left behind.

But the breaking point, the instant when finally Prowl himself had been brought in to find out what was going on, was the next orbit when the younglings' Valentines finally made their way into the intercity communications system.

Or as Aria liked to call it; the mail room.

The second level communications center was surrounded by a crowd of gawkers by the time Prowl got there. He had to shove at some of the more distracted mechs milling around just to be able to get into the room, an unusual occurrence since most of the time when mechs saw him coming they practically leapt out of the immediate area.

"Coming through, watch yourself," Prowl tried to squeeze into the communications center, but with little success. "Move!" He finally yelled.

_"Finally,"_ the second in command thought as the mechs suddenly noticed him and stepped aside to make room. He also noticed that a good quarter of them left outright.

Prowl found Jazz and Warpath at the center of things. Down at their feet stood the little organic femme. Aria was looking up, staring with wide optics, but not at the mechs above her.

Prowl froze when he saw what she was gaping at. High on the back wall a long banner had been tacked up, the clumsily written words, 'Happy Valentine's Day!' sprawled across its length. Sitting below it on the desk that separated the sorting area from the walk-in space where the bots searching for their correspondence could wait until it was found, was a giant mass of brightly colored paper.

The black and white mech felt his optic twitch. _"It's all made up of these Valentines."_ He thought in shock. His mouth nearly dropped open when he saw there was another bin filled solely with Valentines sitting behind the counter.

"What in the name of Primus is going on here?" Prowl finally demanded.

Jazz gestured to the stacks of decorated paper in front of them. "The younglings made cards for everybody. What's it look like?" He asked as if this made perfect sense.

Prowl shot him a mild glare. "Well how did they get in here? And where in the world did they hear about these things anyway?"

"From me," Aria said somewhat sheepishly at their feet, "It's an Earth holiday I told them about called Valentine's Day," Aria explained, "it's where you give friends and loved one cards or gifts to show how much they mean to you. They, uh, might have taken it a little far though." She mumbled with another glance at the mountain of cards.

"Ya think?" Jazz asked.

"Well how did they get in here?" Prowl asked, rubbing at the bridge of his nose to prevent the headache he knew was coming.

"They didn't," Warpath spoke up for the first time, "they just shoved them all through the slot in the door. When I came in for my shift at sorting they were just piled up on the floor. I nearly slipped and fell in them."

Prowl gave the mech a flat look. "And the banner?" He asked.

Warpath's optics flickering too it uneasily. "They, uh, slipped that through the slot too. I didn't see the harm in it, so I put it up." He admitted, looking guiltily at the floor.

Jazz inspected the banner hanging on the wall. "It looks good. Their handwriting's getting better." He observed.

Prowl slanted a look at his long time friend. "That is not helpful." He told the other mech, sounding a bit put upon now. He gave the banner and the Valentines another long look.

He sighed. "Fine, keep the thing up for now. But as soon as the orbit is out I want it taken down."

Aria looked up at him with wide eyes. "But they worked so hard on it." She pointed out.

Prowl glared mildly down at her. Then he saw that everyone else in the room was giving him the same doe-eyed look.

He looked over at Jazz again. The lieutenant just shrugged. "It's not like it's hurtin' anything." He muttered.

Prowl vented another sigh. "Alright take it down in an _orn_. As long as it comes down sooner rather then later." He snapped slightly.

"And the cards?" Warpath dared to ask.

"Deliver them!" Prowl told him. He was slightly mortified to hear his voice was louder then normal.

Warpath nodded rather quickly and darted behind the desk to hurriedly start sorting out who each card belonged too. Prowl was just about to leave when a too-smug Sunstreaker sauntered into the room.

_"Oh, this can't be good."_ Prowl thought, almost resigned to the fact that today was going to be far more interesting then he had hoped.

Warpath didn't notice when the gold mech came up to the counter. He was too busy picking Valentines out of the pile and shoving them into the boxes that each bot had been assigned.

"Uh, Cliffjumper," shove, "Brawn," shove, "Ironhide," shove, "Moonracer," shove, "Jazz."

"Oo." The mech said and quickly grabbed the card.

Warpath kept going. "Prime, Wheeljack, Su-"

"That one's mine." Sunstreaker said before Warpath could finish speaking, snatching the bright yellow card right out of the other mech's hand. Prowl did not like the way the older twin held the thing, like it was worth his weight in credits.

"'Dear Sunstreaker,'" he said, making a big show of reading it out loud, "'you're an awesome mech and your paint is shiny.' There," he crowed, holding the card up for all to see, "at least one of the little ankle biters knows a good role model when he sees one."

Then, with a smug little grin on his face that had Prowl itching to just slap him with a conduct misdemeanor, the vain mech sauntered right back out of the room.

Aria glared after him angrily. "I'll show him who's an ankle biter if he ever calls them that again." She grumbled.

Jazz chuckled. "Don't worry girly, I'm sure you'll get your chance to show 'im who's boss one of these orbits."

Prowl just stared after the mech, optics narrowed. "I think we're missing something here." He said, keeping his voice low enough so that only Jazz and Aria heard him.

"And what's that?" Jazz asked.

"Who would give _Sunstreaker_ a Valentine?"

~^..^~

The question nagged at Prowl for the rest of the orbit. It just didn't make any sense. Sunstreaker was vain, irritable, annoying, not to mention one of the biggest thorns in Prowl's side in the history of all time.

Who in their right processor would ever give _Sunstreaker_ a _Valentine_?

_"Maybe they're not in their right mind." _Prowl mused later that orbit as he sat at his desk filling out a report. _"Maybe they're just crazy. Or they mislabeled it…"_

There had to be a reason. There just _had_ to. Mechs like Sunstreaker didn't get cards that were meant to show _appreciation_. At least on some deep, _deep_, level, Prowl could understand why the seeker younglings had given Sideswipe one. He was roughly on level with them for maturity and troublesome nature, but not even _they _had given a card to Sunstreaker. And that spoke _volumes _of the mech's antisocial character when not even younglings were willing to give him a chance.

Now Sunstreaker was saying the card was from his 'secret admirer'. Prowl frowned down at the report in front of him. "Secret admirer," he grumbled to himself, "secret admirer my battle processor. Someone out there has lost his mind, and I know for a fact it wasn't one of the younglings. I should find this head case before their instability actually causes some real damage."

So with justification firmly in mind, Prowl stood, abandoning his report for the time being, and left his office.

Jazz was standing just outside his office, hand raised to knock on the door when it flew open. The silver bot quickly got out of the way when Prowl stormed through the door.

"Whoa, watch it there Prowl. What's got you all worked up now?" Jazz asked as he quickly fell into step behind the former black and white.

"Sunstreaker," the second in command said simply.

Jazz looked up at the ceiling as if praying for patience. "Alright, so what'd he do now?"

"Nothing," Prowl snapped, "it's that Pit-spawned _Valentine_."

Prowl felt Jazz's incredulous look on his back. "Are you serious man? It's just a card. Let it go."

"No," Prowl said resolutely and Jazz realized there would be no arguing with him now.

"Alright well _why_? Why does it even matter? Ok, so somebody sent him a card. Who cares? Some bots are just crazy I guess…" he trailed off.

"That's the point." Prowl told him. "There's a lunatic running around out there and I'm going to find out who it is."

Jazz was quiet a moment.

"You just want to by nosy, don't you?" He eventually asked.

"Mute it." Prowl shot back. "I'm going to make sense of this if it's the last thing I do."

Jazz just vented a sigh and followed him.

~^..^~

They found Sunstreaker on the main floor of the building along with his brother and, surprisingly enough, Aria.

"He got _another_ one." The little human said by way of explanation when Jazz and Prowl walked up to them.

Prowl looked up at Sunstreaker with temporarily wide optics. "What?" He asked, his voice slightly higher than usual.

Sunstreaker's smug grin was almost more then the SIC could take. "Yep. You want me to read you this one too?" He asked in obvious self satisfaction.

Next to him Sideswipe groaned. "Oh Primus, not again." He muttered, clearly sick of it.

Prowl stared at the letter in Sunstreaker's hand and quickly shook himself. He glared at the gold mech and jabbed a finger at the card in question. "Who sent you that Sunstreaker?" He demanded.

"Why do you want to know?" The mech asked haughtily.

Prowl lowered his optic ridges at the shorter mech. "It's a matter of base security. Just tell me who it is so I can talk to them." _"And demand what the heck they were thinking." _He mentally added.

Sunstreaker lifted his chin defiantly, crossed his arms over his chest and simply said, "No."

Prowl practically felt like he was smoking. But before he could throttle the idiot mech, Sideswipe stepped in.

"Ah come on bro, let us in on the secret." He said coaxingly as he leaned an arm on his brother's shoulder, "Who is it?"

But Sunstreaker just grinned victoriously. "Nope, I don't want to expose them to the bashful embarrassment that comes with their spark deep devotion to me-"

He would have gone on to sing his own praises but something finally clicked in Prowl's mind.

"Wait a minute," the tactician said as it finally occurred to him what had been bothering him about Sunny having an admirer of any sort, "you _knew_ it was for you."

Sunstreaker looked over at him and shrugged. "Yeah, so?"

Prowl narrowed his optics at him. "So that stupid card was buried in that ridiculous _mountain _of Valentines," he jabbed a finger at the card again, but this time his own victorious grin was starting to pull at his faceplates, "and you _knew _it was for you before Warpath even read the name on it." He pointed out sharply.

Down near their feet, Aria turned around to face Sunstreaker and planted her hands on her hips. "You sent one to _yourself_?" She asked incredulously.

"Two." Jazz pointed out gleefully.

Sideswipe slanted a look at his brother. "Bro, that's just low." But everyone could tell that he was just dying to laugh.

Sunstreaker just shrugged again, trying to dislodge the flat looks everyone was now giving him. "I'm the only one worthy enough to give me one." He told them as if it made perfect sense and then simply walked away.

Behind him, the others stared at his retreating back.

"Ya know," Jazz said slowly and with a good amount of relief, "this actually makes a lotta sense."

"Yes," Prowl said with a gust of air, proud in his victory, "the world is no longer standing on its head."

Aria just smacked her palm to her forehead. "Oh for goodness sake…" she groaned.

* * *

><p>;3 He he, another one down! Next up, the 'cons get some love too. Now if only they'd see it that way...<p> 


	3. Chapter 3:Why Decepticons Do Not Get Val

Oh my Lord in Heaven! Fanfiction . net has serious _issues!_ I got this done in the afternoon and I couldn't post it because I couldn't sign it! It kept saying the connection was timed out. *Lets out a big sigh* That was ridiculous! All day with no fanfiction. *Sniff!*

*starts talking to herself* But hey, it's up, it's up, just keep cool. Let go. *Big calming breath* Ahem, right then, so thank you to my reviewers littledhampir13, annebellelennox, and Vivian Hale (Jazz's orders, ya gotta be last this time. Can't go against the Jazz-man now can I? ;3) Your reviews just made my day! Hugs and platonic kisses! XP

Much luv goes out to everybody out there. Hope you enjoy the 'con torturing to come. He he he...

...

Attack of the Valentines!

(aka: Valentine's Revenge)

~^..^~

Why Decepticons Do Not Get Valentines

~^..^~

The two Decepticons Dead End and Swindle were not strictly a part of Megatron's brightest and best. Or his good and his great. They weren't even a part of his okay and alright. They were just sort of there, usually either running patrols or causing havoc (on base and off). Sometimes it was both.

Now was about to become one of those times.

They had tried to tell the others that they never caused havoc intentionally. Havoc found _them_. And on a pretty regular basis too. But of course no one believed them. At that point they usually started blaming the other for all their problems, which usually led to a brawl, which in turn usually led to them sharing brig space, which, to cut the story short, never ended well for anyone involved.

At that moment they weren't on base (which everyone else was incredibly thankful for). Instead they were making their through the burnt out remains of one city or another. They didn't know which one because they had never bothered learning its name. Both moons were up, shedding a harsh light on the broken scene around them that made the shadows appear even darker and inkier then they really were. It was quiet all around them, just like one would expect from this late in the lunar cycle.

Dead End hated quiet.

"Hey Swindle," Dead End hollered as quietly as he was capable of at the starkly shadowed figure ahead of him, "what the Pit are we doin' this for again?"

"Because dumb aft," Swindle muttered back in his usual sour way, "we were ordered too. Do we need a better reason?"

Dead End looked around again at the ruined bones of what had once been a small city set out in the middle of nowhere and thought that the only thing that hadn't changed was that vorns later this place was _still _smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

"But just look at this place," Dead End spoke up again a few cycles later, "it's gutted. No one's been hear in stellar cycles. Let's go back. Find some place to park it until we've got to report in. We'll get just as much done as we would patrolling this empty shell but without all the hassle. What'dya say?"

Dead End sensed as much as heard Swindle's intake of air as he tried to retain his feeble grip on his patience. Swindle hated Dead End, plain and simple, although Dead End had never found out why. Not that it mattered. Swindle wasn't exactly all that likable himself.

"I say _you _can do what you want, as long as you leave _me _out of it when you get caught. Just what do you think Megatron will do to you if he catches you recharging somewhere when you're supposed to be making sure that none of those slaggin' Autobots are around here somewhere?" He threw the question out behind him.

It was impossible for Dead End to hunch his shoulders as he followed Swindle in his alt mode, so he settled for falling back even farther to sulk. "Oh come one," he exclaimed, plodding after Swindle, "they're not here. No one's here! We might as well be on the fraggin' moon!"

"At least it's quiet on the moon…" Swindle muttered darkly.

Dead End sunk deeper into his sulk, looking over to glare at Swindle every once in a while as they rolled through the decimated town.

They rolled down another few streets in silence, Swindle watching keenly for any signs of their enemy with Dead End throwing a few disinterested glances at his surroundings when he felt like it. The second mech had just decided to ask Swindle if his creator knew the kind of Pit spawned glitch he'd turned into – just to get a rise out of him – when Swindle just stopped in the street ahead of him.

Dead End nearly reared ended Swindle before he realized what was going on. "Fraggit!" Watch what yer doin'!" Dead End yelled at him.

"Mute it!" Swindle hissed. Dead End did, but under serious internal protest.

"Ya hear that?" Swindle finally whispered.

"No," Dead End answered sullenly, but then he actually stopped to listen. He could hear something, now that Swindle mentioned it. He had noticed it for a while now, but he had thought it was just the wind whispering through the crags and crannies of this haunted place.

Dead End's alt mode tilted slightly as he tried to listen better to whatever-it-was that was making the noise. It sounded almost like a whipping or a rattling sound, but softer, like a banner snapping in the wind.

"What is it?" Dead End asked quietly.

"I don't know."

"You think it's the Autobots?"

"I said I don't know!" Swindle hissed at his partner.

They sat there, silent and still, a cycle more.

"Let's go check it out." Dead End finally whispered.

Swindle gave a grunt of an affirmative before rolling in the direction of the soft noise. They had passed a handful of half toppled buildings when Swindle silently gestured Dead End to circle around the noise while Swindle kept going. Dead End gave him confirmation he understood before leaving Swindle to set up the ambush.

The noise grew louder as Dead End approached what had used to be a town square. The buildings around the center square were blackened, but somehow still standing for the most part, keeping the Decepticon out of the line of sight of whatever was waiting for him on the other side of the ring of buildings. He stopped when he reached the far side of the square, and hunkered down behind one of the sturdier looking structures. Carefully, he leaned around just far enough to catch a glimpse of the square, but he didn't see anything that looked like Autobots. Just a strange flickering thing.

He sent a pulse wave to Swindle when he was in position, but the other Decepticon didn't answer right away. Dead End was just beginning to wonder if something had happened to the other mech when Swindle's confused voice appeared over his comm.

"Is that…paper?"

Taking Swindle's question as a sign that he could talk again, Dead End answered, "I dunno."

Dead End caught sight of movement beyond the square, but relaxed when he realized it was just Swindle as he transformed into his bipedal mode and moved in for a closer look. "It is!" He exclaimed crossly a moment later. "It's fraggin' _paper_!"

"How archaic," Dead End said as he left his hiding spot and entered the deserted square as well. There was a crumbled up fountain in the middle of the open space. Swindle was standing in front of it, staring at the mass of brightly colored papers that had been tacked onto its surface except for a large gap in the dead center. As Dead End transformed out of his alt mode, he saw that the flapping sounds were coming from them as they rustled in the slight wind.

"What the heck is it?" Dead End asked as he bent down to peer at what the papers had written on them.

"How am I supposed to know?" Swindle exploded, throwing his arms up as he whirled on his partner. "It's a bunch of slaggin' _paper_!"

"But why?" Dead End asked, unfazed by Swindle's mood swing.

It was a decent question, but neither of them had an answer.

"Hey, what's this say?" Dead End asked a cycle later as he stood up and inspected the center of the fountain where whoever had done this had left a blank space, free of the mysterious red and white papers.

"I don't care," Swindle grumbled as he walked away to inspect the perimeter of the square, "if it's not an Autobot, then I don't fraggin' care!"

Dead End ignored him and squinted at the muddled up writing someone had scratched into the broken up fountain. "'Vvvvaaiahdaie is here'?" He hazarded a guess.

"What?" Swindle demanded, turning back to look at the other mech.

"Vuhdae?" Dead End tried again, stumbling out the unfamiliar word. "'Vuhdae is here.' That's what it says." He shrugged.

"What?" Swindle barked again in exasperation as he came over and shoved the mech he was currently stuck with. "Stupid, that's not a word."

"But that's what it says." Dead End defended himself. "See?" He pointed at the flat surface in front of them.

The other leaned in close. "Stupid," Swindle said again when he leaned back and smacked the first again. "It doesn't say vuhdae. It says _Vee_day. Tch, idiot."

"Well _fine _then," Dead End snapped, "then who is _Vee_day and why was he here?" He demanded petulantly.

The other rolled his optics again. "It doesn't say he _was_ here. It says he _is_ here, stupid."

The implication of this hit them both a nanoklik later.

The Decepticons whirled, weapons appearing as they got back to back so no one could sneak up on them.

"Where d'ya think the slagger is?" Dead End asked as he wildly searched their surroundings for any sign of an ambush.

"I don't know," Swindle said angrily as he searched the roofs for any sign of movement

"We know you're there Veeday!" Swindle shouted a klik later when nothing happened.

"Yeah!" Dead End copied him. "So come on out and fight like a mech you Pit-spawned coward!" He hollered.

Nothing moved, nobody appeared. The only sound was the rustling of the papers stuck to the fountain.

"Frag it all GET OUT HERE!" Swindle yelled.

Dead End didn't know what happened next, only that suddenly there was a strong gust of wind, the sharp sound of a thousand things ripping, and then he was surrounded by a menacing cloud of pink and white that obscured his optics and made it impossible to see.

"AHH!" He started yelling, panicking blindly as he flailed to get the cloud off of him. "GET 'EM OFF! GET 'EM OFF ME!" He screamed as he started shooting into the cloud. Dimly he heard the sound of Swindle shouting and cursing somewhere behind him, but Dead End wasn't really paying attention to him.

"Watch where you're shooting you idiot!"

"GET ME OUTTA HERE!"

~^..^~

Up above them, from behind the safety of a cluster of rubble that sat on one of the rooftops, a different set of troublemakers watched the two panicking Decepticons as they tried to find their way out of the mess of Valentines that were flying around them like a flock of angry birds.

"I told you that glue wasn't strong enough for this wind." Sideswipe casually told his brother next to him.

Sunstreaker grunted in a, "yeah, yeah, I heard you," kind of way. They watched the Decepticons fire at the shreds of flying paper some more. One of them started to scream pathetically.

"Ten credits says one of them shoots the other in the foot." Sunstreaker whispered to Sideswipe crouching next to him.

The silver twin held out a hand to seal the bet. "You're on."

~^..^~

By the time dawn broke the next orbit, Dead End and Swindle found themselves standing before Megatron himself to report on what had happened.

"So tell me again," the big mech asked slowly, his red optics never leaving the frozen forms of Swindle and Dead End, "how many were there?"

It took Dead End a moment to find his voice, he was so petrified. "T-too many, my lord. They just appeared out of nowhere."

Megatron slowly nodded. "Uh-huh, and during the melee, one of them shot your comrade here, correct?" He asked, waving a hand at Swindle.

Dead End shrank back slightly from the baleful glare Swindle shot at him. He had limped in here, too proud to go straight to the med bay to have his injury seen to. His foot was still smoking too.

"Yes," Dead End said simply, managing to keep his voice steady this time.

"And does this all sound familiar to you Swindle?" Megatron asked, his level gaze flicking over to the surly mech.

Swindle hesitated only a nanoklik before standing up straighter. "Yes, Lord Megatron." He answered stiffly.

Megatron looked over at his second standing next to him. Starscream's maliciously gleeful smile did nothing to make Dead End feel better.

"So let me see if I have this straight," Megatron said as he pushed himself off of his throne-like chair. "You were patrolling the area west of the Sonic Canyon, like you were supposed to-"

"Yes, Lord Megatron," Swindle and Dead End said when it was clear he was waiting for their confirmation.

"-when you were ambushed by the Autobots, a whole squad of them even-"

Dead End nodded slightly, "Yes."

"-they shot Swindle-"

"Yes."

"-but not you-"

Dead End answered somewhat hesitantly now, wondering where this was all going. "Yes…"

"-and then the two of you managed to escape and make it back to base in one piece," he looked over at the still smoking Swindle, "relatively."

Dead End nodded firmly. Swindle remained silent. "Yes sir."

"So it all happened just like you said then?" He asked, taking a calculated step forward.

Dead End swiftly glanced away before looking back at his leader. "Yes." He didn't sound as sure as he should.

Megatron grinned slightly, an action that did not comfort either Dead End or Swindle. The Decepticon leader took another careful step forward. He was right in front of them now. Dead End went even stiller then his name might imply as the Decepticon lord stared him down, red optics pinning him in place. It was all the mech could do not to shake into a pile of parts right there as Megatron grinned at them outright, as if he could smell their lie.

"So tell me then, if it all happened exactly as you say," he said, reaching out with exaggerated care to pull something off of Dead End's armor, "then what is this?"

Dead End locked optics on the scrap of pink paper that had gotten stuck to him. An uncomfortable sinking sensation started to drag him down.

"Uh…" was all he could think to say.

* * *

><p>Ahahaha! That's what they get for being evil! *laughs manically* Uh...small admission here, I've only seen snapshots of Dead End and Swindle, and it seemed to me like they were evil versions of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, but it I was wrong well, uh, oops...<p>

Next up, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Moonracer, and Bluestreak join in on the fun!


	4. Chapter 4: Not Mine, Valentine

I wish I had a good excuse for not getting this up yesterday, like Fanfiction wasn't letting me log on again, but I don't. Truth is I put off writing, went rushing around with my mom and sister, and had a _really_ nice dinner with my mom. Oh, and I slept in. I liked that part. But oh well. I also stayed up till two in the morning finishing this, so I think we're even. Hope you love it!

Writing Moonracer was _fun, _I just hope she doesn't come off as too young. Age wise she's not a youngling, but she obviously hasn't resigned herself to being a boring adult either. I think she's now become one of my favorite femmes. n_n Along with Elita...and Chromia...oh and Arcee of course...you know what? Maybe it would just be easier to list my least favorite ones. Okay, so...oh! There aren't any. Huh, that _was_ easier. ;3

Thanks go to annebellelennox and littledhampir13 for reviewing. Thanks guys! *heart* n_n

~^..^~

Attack of the Valentines!

(aka: Valentine's Longing)

~^..^~

Not Mine, Valentine

~^..^~

A few orbits after Sunny and Sides had come back bragging about how they had plastered some 'cons with Valentines of all things, the Valentine obsession was in full swing. The younglings weren't the only ones that had latched onto the idea and by now most of the adults had passed along some cards as well. Usually it was just for a laugh, but Wheeljack had seen that some of the femmes especially were taking the little gifts more seriously.

The inventor made another adjustment to the machine in front of him almost absentmindedly as he thought. It was strange, he reflected, how organics could put so much faith into a little piece of paper. Just hearing about it, he had thought it rather silly, but seeing the Valentines in action was odd because they actually _worked_.

"Ow!" Wheeljack yelled as something gave way under his thick fingers. Wheeljack snapped his hands back and froze when he heard the tell tale crack of something about to go wrong on the table in front of him.

The new nitrogen explosive he was working on started hissing as white smoke shot out of the cracked casing. "This is why I do not like dealing with chemicals," Wheeljack grumbled as he saw that there was now a large fracture in the casing he had been tightening up. "They don't follow the same rules as solid materials. They don't even follow their own rules! Fraggin' nitrogen-Ow!" He yelped again and backed away to a safer distance incase the fickle nitrogen decided to take a turn for the explosive.

"Dang it not again…" Wheeljack groaned as he looked to see that his fingertips looked like they had been painted white, borrowing a word he had heard Aria use before. He vented a sigh as he shot a glance at the wall that separated his lab from the medical bay. Or as Wheeljack and every other spark alive called it, _Ratchet's Domain_.

Wheeljack looked at the wall and then gave his hands a hard look. He really didn't want to go to Ratchet with this, not after the incident yesterday with the, uh, industrial welder, but if it meant he wouldn't lose feeling in his digits for the rest of his existence, or maybe even lose them period…

Wheeljack vented a sigh and shuffled over to the small door set into the wall his lab shared with Ratchet's medical bay. There was a main door, but after all of the 'incidents' that had happened to Wheeljack, Ratchet had had Hoist put in the side door so that he wouldn't have to walk twenty cycles just to see if Wheeljack had blown a hole in his table or his arm this time.

Wheeljack just sighed as the door opened when he approached it, and wondered why everything he touched tended to do things like freeze the ends of his fingers.

The door opened up on a little used back way of the med bay and Wheeljack made his way through the stacks of supplies towards the main center of activity, making sure to keep his hands up so he didn't accidentally break them beyond repair.

The supply hall was dim, the lighting somewhat faulty, but it was only ten yards or so long so the light from the main room sitting just beyond was bright enough to illuminate the way for Wheeljack. The sounds of voices along with the tinkering sounds of several of Ratchet's machines could be heard as the inventor made his way along the hall. As he got closer, the unintelligible voices resolved into the familiar tone of Ratchet.

"Just look at you," he was grumbling at someone, "how'd you end up with all these dents in your arm?"

"No reason…" came the hesitant voice of the young mech Bluestreak.

There was a pause. "You got licked in sparring practice again didn't you?" Ratchet finally asked, lowering his voice somewhat. Most mechs would have been surprised to even think that Ratchet was trying to help the adolescent bot save some face, but Wheeljack was one of the few that knew Ratchet better than that.

"…yes." Came the eventual mutter.

Ratchet sighed and tossed something off to the side. It struck something else with a resounding clang. "Look kid, I know you've got your spark set on becoming a great Autobot warrior and leaping into the fray and taking the fight to the 'cons and all that, but maybe you should just stick to what you're good at." Ratchet told him gruffly.

Wheeljack didn't have to imagine the way Bluestreak slumped dejectedly in his seat as he finally walked into the main room of the med bay. "Getting pummeled." Bluestreak muttered.

Ratchet looked up from the drawer of tools he was rifling through and fixed the oldest youngling with a firm stare, as if he couldn't believe that was what Bluestreak thought he meant. "Your marksmanship." He stated flatly.

Bluestreak only had time to blink at the older medic before Ratchet noticed Wheeljack coming out of the hallway. His stern optic ridges became a solid line above his optics when he saw the way his old friend was carefully holding his hands in front of him.

"And just what," he stated flatly, "did you do to yourself now?"

Wheeljack's optics slid away from Ratchet's accusing stare. "The new nitrogen bombs may be…exploding prematurely." He confessed slowly.

Ratchet glowered at Wheeljack and growled just the slightest bit.

"Nitrogen's just not my thing." Wheeljack tried to defend himself.

Ratchet slowly pointed at the metal bed next to Bluestreak's with a wrench. "Sit. Down."

Wheeljack did so quickly. He shot a look over at the smaller Bluestreak and their optics met as the medic turned to his tool bench. Wheeljack knew they were both thinking the same thing.

_"Uh-oh."_

They both straightened up when the emergency yellow mech spun around, a slightly bigger wrench in hand to point at them. "And another thing-" He started to shout at the inventor, but a lighthearted giggle cut him off.

"Same old Ratchet, never stops shouting, and at his patients too."

The three mechs turned toward the main door just as it slid shut behind Moonracer. She was one of the younger femmes, about twice as old as Bluestreak, but that wasn't really saying much since he was still a child. She was young for a bot, and full of energy. Her sea green armor was probably cheerier then armor had any business being, but it matched her disposition. She was almost always smiling.

The femme shot the old medic an exasperated look as she walked over to them. "Are you berating poor Wheeljack again Ratchet? Really? Don't you have anything better to d-eep!" She suddenly tripped over a nonexistent bump in the floor and gave a small squeak.

She was also a complete klutz.

With an experienced motion, Ratchet reached out and snagged her by the back of the neck and set the femme smartly back on her feet. He sharply patted her twice on the shoulder and turned back to his tool bench.

Moonracer shook off her almost fall with a little shiver and smiled at the two unfortunate mechs sitting on the steel berths. "Thanks Uncle Ratch'!" She exclaimed.

Ratchet turned slowly and narrowed an optic at her to show just how much he appreciated the nickname.

Where most mechs would have started shaking in their armor, Moonracer just giggled, not even worried about the medic's glare. "Uh-oh, the big bad Hatchet is upset with me…" she trailed off teasingly as she clasped her hands behind her back and made a show of walking over to Bluestreak and Wheeljack. Then she whirled smartly around and plopped down between them. She slung an arm over Bluestreak's shoulders and winked playfully at Wheeljack. Wheeljack suddenly felt a little funny and looked away. He gave his fingers another look. Maybe the nitrogen was starting to affect him.

Moonracer just laughed again and turned back to Ratchet.

"I have something for you…" she said in a sing-song voice.

"Oh yeah?" Ratchet asked as he rifled through his tools some more. He sounded distracted, but Wheeljack could see how he kept the young femme in his peripheral vision even as he picked up a vice and held it up for inspection. "What is it?"

Moonracer's smile was positively sneaky. She gave a fake gasp for effect, but it was ruined when she giggled as she turned to Bluestreak. "He wants to know what it is." She stage-whispered to him like it was some great secret. "Should we tell him?"

"Uh…" Bluestreak muttered as his optics flicked side to side, as if the answer to what the heck Moonracer was talking about was just lying on the floor somewhere. "I guess so?"

She twirled her hand and flicked her wrist dramatically and a white envelope appeared from subspace in her other hand. She winked at Bluestreak before hopping off of the bench.

"Here ya go Ratch'. For my _fav_orite uncle." She told him as she reached out and stuck the envelope right between Ratchet's eyes. He looked up grimly as she leaned back and grinned at him. Only now that it was tacked onto the medic's head did Wheeljack see the little heart – sea green to match her armor – Moonracer had stuck on the flap of the envelope to seal it.

Ratchet growled slightly as he looked up cross-eyed at the envelope. "I'm not your uncle." Ratchet said brusquely as he pulled the thing off his head and handed it back to Moonracer before walking past her with something to tighten up Bluestreak's shoulder joint that had been loosened too much in practice.

Moonracer frowned at him before walking to the other side of the berth Bluestreak was sitting on so that the medic _had _to face her. "Fake uncle then." She said and held out the envelope to him again.

Ratchet resolutely did not look up at her.

Moonracer sighed and Wheeljack noticed the slight hurt that entered her optics, even if Ratchet didn't see. "_Please _Ratchet? I made it just for you," she told him, sounding a little embarrassed now. She looked younger then before now as she hunched her shoulders a little.

Wheeljack watched as Ratchet purposefully busied himself with Bluestreak's shoulder. The youngling sat there tensely, hardly daring to move as for the first time in Autobot history, Ratchet was put in a personally uncomfortable position. Even after that, the boy was too afraid to tell his friends of this miracle just at the thought of what Ratchet might do to him if he ever did.

After a long moment, Ratchet reached out and snatched the thing out of her hand.

Moonracer jumped up and down, clapping gleefully. "Yay!" She squeaked like a little femmeling. Wheeljack found himself wanting to shake his head at her. He couldn't tell if she did it on purpose, but it always seemed like she was trying to make bots smile. He found it endearing.

"What is it?" Bluestreak asked, sitting easier now that he knew Ratchet wasn't about to explode in his near vicinity.

Moonracer stopped her bouncing and rolled her blue optics at the young mech. "It's a Valentine silly youngling. Everyone on base is giving them to their friends and things."

Wheeljack nodded. Even he had gotten one. It was sitting on a shelf in his lab next to his plans for an automatic catapult machine that would build machines that would build machines that would build catapults. Although it was only from Skids and Mudflap, and it only thanked him for not blowing them all to the Matrix and back, so he didn't think it should count.

Bluestreak's optics went wide for a moment. "Wow, I bet Aria's got lots and lots of them." He mumbled, probably thinking he should get one for her too.

Moonracer's optic ridges furrowed over her clear optics. "Actually, I don't thinks she's gotten any yet. Everyone's been too busy with everybody else."

Bluestreak stared at her in horror. "You mean you all _forgot_ about her?" He demanded, scandalized.

"Eh he he," Moonracer laughed nervously, "not anymore. I'll make one for her as soon as I get back. And anyway, you'll like yours Ratchet, I know you will. You really are my favorite fake uncle." Moonracer said, jumping excitedly again. Then her foot slipped and she nearly went sliding to the floor with a startled yelp.

Wheeljack caught her this time, stopping her fall right before her head hit the floor.

For a cycle, Moonracer stared up at Wheeljack, almost as if she hadn't noticed him before.

"Whew," Moonracer said a moment later, aiming for relief, "that was close, thanks, em, Jack!" She stuttered, almost like she had forgotten his name.

Wheeljack tried to say something – anything! – but all that would come to his mind was a little, pained, "_ow_."

Moonracer let go of his arm and fell the last few feet to the floor with an, "oomph!"

"Aw, poor Jackie," Moonracer cooed when she saw his white fingers, "what are you waiting around for Ratchet? Get crackin'! What does Optimus pay you for if you don't fix up self destructive mechs like Jackie here?" She asked with a pitying glace at the inventor.

Ratchet frowned at her. "Optimus doesn't pay me anything." He told her sternly.

"Oh, well that explains everything then." Moonracer said, and then quickly ducked with a grin and a mad little giggle as one of Ratchet's wrenches flew over her head.

"Open up your Valentine soon Ratch'! And consider it a thank you for the new armor! I love the color!" Moonracer yelled as she sped towards the door.

"I thought you'd hate it." Ratchet said as if that's what he had hoped for.

Moonracer winked at him as she walked backwards towards the door. "But you secretly knew I'd love it. Bye Blue! Bye Jackie! Hope you both feel better! Later Ratch'!"

Then with a flurry of giggling, Moonracer darted out the door.

There was a moment of silence as the mechs tried to readjust to the idea of peace and quiet.

"Sooo…" Wheeljack said as Ratchet went back to adjusting Bluestreak's arm, shaking his head as he did so, "what's it say?"

"Yeah, read it Ratchet," Bluestreak piped up.

Ratchet vented an exasperated sigh, but in the end picked up Moonracer's Valentine and peeled off the little sea green heart taped to the flap of the envelope. He opened it up and pulled out a messily drawn, handmade card.

"'Dear Ratchet,'" he read it out loud, "'just because you're not _really_ my uncle, doesn't mean I can't luv you like one. Signed your (fake) niece, Moonracer'. That strange femmeling," he murmured as he put down his card and lifted Bluestreak's arm experimentally.

"That's…" Wheeljack tried to think of an appropriate word for what that was, "…sweet?"

"If you say so," the old medic grumbled, "Now how's that feel? Better?" He asked the youngling.

Bluestreak nodded his head. "Yes," he mumbled thoughtfully, "just fine. Can I go now? I've got to collect some stuff for Aria."

The medic narrowed his optics at the youngling then nodded sharply. "Alright, but remember to keep your guard up the next time you get in a fight and you might not have to come in here every few orbits. Deal?" He asked the youngling.

But it was almost pointless. Bluestreak was at the door already. "Right Ratchet, bye!" He called as he ran out the door.

Wheeljack waved slightly at the disappearing youngling and then flinched when his fingers twinged. Ratchet turned his disapproving stare on him and propped his hands on his hips as he vented a sigh. "And now for you." He said under his breath as he threw the tool he had been using back into the still open drawer. He gave the Valentine another glance before carefully setting it on the counter.

"I don't know why she gives me these sorts of things." He muttered as he went about searching for something else. "It's not like she owes me anything. I only rebuilt her that one time," he held up a finger emphatically, "and ever since then she comes around here squeaking and falling and calling me Uncle Ratch'." He said with another shake of his head, but Wheeljack didn't think he was complaining exactly.

"Maybe she's just trying to thank you." The inventor pointed out.

Ratchet grunted as he peered at the labels on his cabinet. "Well she's got a strange way of doing it. Why not just say 'thanks' and get it over with?" He asked over his shoulder as he found the right door.

Wheeljack shrugged a bit. "It makes perfect sense to me." He mumbled.

"Well then she can pop up and bug you all orbit long. And a right perfect pair you'll be, her always falling over her own feet and you incessantly trying to blow the both of you up." Ratchet said, pulling out a welder and inspecting it.

Wheeljack sincerely hoped he wasn't planning on using _that_ to thaw out his fingers.

"I mean really," the medic continued a moment later as he, thankfully, put the welder away and pointed at Moonracer's Valentine's card, "what am I supposed to do with that thing?"

Wheeljack looked over at the card the sweet femme had made just for Ratchet and a little pang of jealousy pulled at his spark. Ratchet was luckier then he would ever admit. Moonracer didn't go around making things for just anybody.

"I'll take it," the inventor offered offhandedly, "if you really don't want it."

Ratchet stopped his searching long enough to fix an irritated glare on his old friend. "No." He said simply.

Wheeljack sat there somewhat sulkily. He hadn't really thought it would work.

But then a moment later Ratchet straightened up from the cabinet he had been looking in and gave Wheeljack a grin that promised more trouble then the inventor felt he was up for. "You know what?" the medic asked deviously, "You can have the little trinket, if-" he held up a finger before Wheeljack could wonder just what exactly was going on, "you pick it up."

Wheeljack looked down at his frozen fingers and then back up at Ratchet with a flat look.

"You're not funny."

Ratchet chuckled deviously and went back to finding something to thaw out his younger friend's fingers. "I thought it was pretty good." He mumbled.

~^..^~

A few cycles later, Wheeljack could feel most of his fingers again and was on his way back to his lab to try and figure out just what had gone wrong _this_ time with his new invention.

"Maybe the shell casing's just too thin," he mused to himself as he retraced his steps down the hallway, "or maybe the liquid nitrogen is just under too much pressure to begin with…"

His verbal thoughts trailed off when he reached the side door that led back to his lab. He stopped and blinked when he was there was a small envelope stuck to the surface of his door.

Curious, and just a little excited, Wheeljack carefully reached out and gently pulled the envelope off of the door. He looked around to see who had left it, but he was alone in the semi-lit hall.

Intrigued, Wheeljack ran a finger along the top of the envelope, tearing the paper to reveal another piece of paper. He briefly thought on the redundancy of this as he pulled it out, but stopped once he saw what was glued on the cover.

A large cut out of a deep red heart was there, standing out sharply against the white of the paper.

_"It's a Valentine," _Wheeljack realized, a little late, as he opened up the card to see who would send _him_ a Valentine besides Skids and Mudflap.

"'To my favorite mech,'" he read softly to himself, "'My love is like organic cabbage, but I'll divide it into two, the leaves I give to Uncle Ratch', but my spark I give you. XOXO, your secret admirer, Luna.'"

Wheeljack reread the little poem inscribed inside again, and wondered who it was. He didn't know what a 'Luna' was, but given the organic reference he thought it might be an Earth term. He'd have to ask Aria about it later.

_"I wonder…"_ Wheeljack thought slowly, barely daring to think it, even in his own head, _"Could she have…?"_

He looked around again, but didn't see anybody. But then when he took another look at the card, he noticed that that there was a little sea green heart taped across the flap of the envelope.

* * *

><p>XD Aw! It's so cute I could bust! And I found that little poem (organic modifications not included) when I googled 'little Valentine's poem'. I thought it fit, uh, 'Luna' perfectly. Now, tomorrow- I mean, later today, look for more of Jazz's antics, Prowl's frustrations with Valentines, and then...the mysterious Valentine theif! Gasp!<p> 


	5. Chapter 5: The Valentine Thief

Ugh, I literally just remembered that I have school tomorrow. Where'd my weekend go? Anyway, aside from FF . net hating me some more, I'm back on track! *Whew* I certainly don't want to do that again. Now I hope you're ready, because Prowl's about to have an _extremely_ bad day. n_n On the plus side, Bluestreak seems to get an idea. Now off to bed before I pass out...hope you love this next chapter! And sorry if there's some grammar mistakes. I didn't have time to double check it. Oh! And one more thing; the 'friendship making things worse' part that's in the summary - that comes into play here. *Mischievously giggles and rubs hands in villainous fashion...*

Thanks to littledhampir13 and annebellelennox for reviewing. I'm so glad someone loved all that fluff besides me! ;D

~^..^~

Attack of the Valentines!

(aka: Valentine's Wanted)

~^..^~

The Valentine Thief

~^..^~

Over the next few orbits, Valentines started to appear everywhere imaginable. Every nook, every cranny, even every _bot_ had Valentines plastered on them somewhere.

It was beginning to drive Prowl mad.

They coated the walls, the furniture, even the _ceilings_ in some cases. They had been glued, taped, plastered to every available surface. Even folded into paper airplanes. They were literally on every available surface, in every available room, even on the _un_-available Ironhide, although Prowl thought that Chromia might have had something to do with that.

_"It's like some kind of pink plague!"_ Prowl thought, not for the first time, as he carefully made his way down the straight halls of Iacon to talk with Optimus. This _had_ to stop. It just could _not_ go on. At least, not without Prowl glitching sooner or later, and the way things were going now, Prowl rather thought it would be sooner rather then later.

"Hey there Prowler, what's got your internals in a knot today?"

Prowl's optics flicked over to Jazz as the other mech joined him in the hall. He was the same easy self he was on any other orbit when the city was coated in pink paper.

The fact that Jazz wasn't even the least bit put out by these stupid papers made Prowl even more annoyed.

_"Am I the only sane one _left_ in this city?"_ He demanded irritably.

He caught sight of the little pink heart someone had glued on Jazz's armor above where his spark would be and realized that yes, yes he was. "And just what have _you_ been up to?" The tactician asked Jazz without looking away from the corridor in front of them.

Jazz threw Prowl a smirk. "Nuthin'," he said, his tone implying that it certainly hadn't been 'nuthin', "just havin' some fun with the ladies." He said as he managed to peel the pink thing off of his armor without ripping it. Of course then it just got stuck to his fingers, no matter how much he tried to shake it off.

"Ridiculous," Prowl scoffed as Jazz gave up trying to shake the Valentine off with a shrug, "this whole affair is utterly ridiculous. Everyone's wasting time with these stupid things. It's getting us nowhere." He grumbled, eyeing the Valentine's plastered all over the wall next to him as the ones carpeting the floor crunched softly under his large feet.

"Ah relax Prowler, it's just a bit of fun. We've been at this war for what? Vorns now, yeah? We could use a bit of fun right now."

Prowl became more offended as he stopped cold in the hallways and spun to face the other mech. "If you think distractions are going to help us win-" he started to say.

Jazz instantly held up his hands to show he hadn't meant it like that. "Easy Prowl, relax, I never said distraction. I said we needed some fun is all. Remember that things aren't all gloom and doom all the time." He said easily enough, then he clapped his uptight friend on the shoulder and continued walking down the hall.

It took Prowl a moment to realize Jazz had stuck the stupid pink heart on the back of his shoulder.

"Fraggit Jazz!" Prowl snapped as he tried to rip the thing off of him, but ended up going in a circle before realizing he couldn't reach it. "I refuse to participate in this madness! I don't want to have these ridiculous things tacked all over me like a piece of furniture." He practically shouted as he gave one more try at getting the sticky heart off of him.

A few feet away, Jazz stopped and turned around to look at him. "Oh I get what this is about." He said knowingly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Prowl stopped fidgeting and fixed a stern optic on Jazz. "You…do?" He asked hesitantly. He saw the impracticality of this organic trend too?

Jazz smirked at the suspicious Prowl. "You didn't get one did you?"

All hopes that someone else saw the ridiculousness of the situation fled Prowl and he gave Jazz a flat look. "Get one what?" He grumbled, although he knew very well what the other mech was talking about.

Jazz pointedly look around at the elaborately decorated papers covering the walls, floor, and to some extent the ceiling, and then turned back to raise an incredulous optic ridge at Prowl.

"You serious about that?" He asked.

Prowl bridled slightly at the small grin that was trying to appear on Jazz's face. "No." He ground out, answering both questions at once. "At least not a real one, just a fake." He added as he joined Jazz farther down the hallway so they continue on their way.

"A fake? How do ya get a fake Valentine?" Jazz asked as he laced his hands behind his head to look up at the ceiling as he walked.

Prowl slanted a look at the silver mech. "Sunny and Sideswipe." He grumbled darkly.

Jazz almost laughed at that, but quickly reigned it in to try and keep Prowl from sinking deeper into his gloom.

"Ah," he said simply instead.

They were a little farther down the hall when Jazz stopped and started searching his compartments. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, if the kids didn't give you yours then did they give me…?" He trailed off thoughtfully as Prowl stopped to stare.

"Jazz, what are you doing?" Prowl asked as if he wasn't sure if he really wanted to know what the snazzy mech was doing now.

He didn't answer him. "Aha!" Jazz cried instead as he finally pulled a little rectangular card out of subspace. "I knew I had it in here somewhere. The younglings must have given me yours by accident when they gave me mine so here." He said, handing over the card, front cover turned purposefully towards the floor.

Prowl slanted Jazz another suspicious look. True, they were friends, but that didn't mean he understood half the things Jazz did.

"What is it?" Prowl asked slowly.

"It's from the younglings," Jazz said as if it was obvious, "What? Ya didn't think they forgot about'cha did ya?" He asked, shaking the card at Prowl again.

Grudgingly, Prowl snatched the card away and opened it.

"Is there a problem?" Jazz asked a cycle later when Prowl didn't say anything.

Prowl gave his friend a flat look and held up the card so that the large 'To Jazz' scrawled across the front cover could be clearly seen. "This is addressed to you from Cloudraker." He stated.

Jazz looked at him and gave a little shrug. "Yeah, so?"

Prowl resisted the urge to vent a sigh, no matter how aggravated he felt. "So it isn't mine. What would I want with one of these cards that isn't mine?" He asked him, slapping the card back down into Jazz's open hand.

Jazz just shrugged, raising one shoulder in a fluid motion. "Look, I was just trying to cheer you up. Do you want it or not?"

Prowl tried to skewer him with a look. "No."

"Well alright then, you're loss." Jazz muttered before throwing the card back into subspace. He gestured for Prowl to keep going, earning another glare from the tactician.

They walked on a little longer, the only sound the shuffle of the papers beneath their feet.

The heart sticking behind his left should started to bother him again and Prowl tried to pull it off, but he still couldn't reach. Then when he wasn't paying attention to where he was going, he stepped on a pot of glue that some thoughtless bot had left on the floor. The bottle cracked under his weight and the glue coated the bottom of his foot, but he didn't notice until he took another step and a whole wad of Valentine's papers stuck to his foot, almost as if they had been attracted to him.

"Frag it…" Prowl muttered as he shook his foot only to get more pink and red wads of paper stuck to him. And then as if that wasn't bad enough, a door up ahead opened and closed, sending a great draft of air came rushing down the hall, stirring up papers and picking up the Valentine's that littered the floor.

They all flew upward with the sudden wind and latched onto Prowl like devious younglings, covering him as thickly as they did the floor.

Jazz heroically held in his laughter.

"AGH!" Prowl yelled, throwing up his hands with a loud rush of paper. "These things are everywhere! Whose bright idea was this?" He demanded loudly.

Jazz snickered and clapped a hand over his mouth to keep the sound to himself. Prowl glared at Jazz through a haze of red and white.

"What are you laughing at?" He asked darkly.

It took Jazz a moment to get himself fully under control. He shrugged, but couldn't resist smiling just a little bit. "Nuthin' Prowler, nuthin'."

"Who," Prowl glared at the surrounded offensive graffiti, "Put. These. Up?"

Jazz choked back a snicker. "I dunno." He admitted.

Prowl glared at him again before taking a few steps down the hallway.

Shuff, shuff, shuff, the papers went.

Jazz laughed behind him.

"That's it!" Prowl yelled, ripping off his new candy colored coating so that little shreds of paper flew around him like a cloud. "I'm confiscating these things and locking them up in my office to prevent any further foolishness!"

"If foolishness breaks your rules now, then we're all sunk." Jazz pointed out, unable to hide all of his amusement at the pink, red, and white be speckled Prowl.

Prowl held out a hand to the lieutenant. "Just gimme that card." He ordered calmly.

Jazz was not intimidated. "No," he told him, "you said you didn't want it."

"I don't want it," Prowl said, still overly calm, "I'm confiscating it with all the rest of the little pink nightmares. Now give it here."

Jazz crossed his arms over his chest and frowned at Prowl for the first time. "No."

"Give it!"

"No!"

Prowl tried to snatch the card away, but Jazz jerked the thing out of his reach and shoved him back with his other hand. Prowl stopped and stared at him, a little shocked that Jazz had shoved him, but then if there was a mech alive that wasn't intimidate by the fact that he was the Autobot second in command, it was Jazz.

But then, Prowl wasn't about to just lie down and take this either.

Prowl leapt forward, feigning a straight grab for the offending Valentine but then grabbing Jazz's arm and flung him over his shoulder in one smooth motion. Jazz wasn't even stunned when he kicked a leg to sweep Prowl's feet out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor.

What followed after that was probably the most impressive display of fighting prowess over possibly the worst reason _ever_. For the most part they were a flurry of movement, Prowl always thinking five steps ahead of the game and Jazz just so unpredictable at times that they were both roughly even throughout the whole thing.

"Didn't anybody tell ya that the SIC made illegal to steal someone else's mail after Sunny and Sides' stole all of his letters?" Jazz managed to ask as he stepped to the side as Prowl made another grab for his Valentine. He quickly grabbed the black and white's hand and bent his fingers back, bringing him to a grinding stop.

"Only if he doesn't have reasonable suspicion that the communication might possess sensitive material." Prowl ground out before slamming a fist into Jazz's knee joint, sending him to the ground next to him.

"Sensitive material? You _read_ the fraggin' thing two kliks ago!" Jazz said before tackling the other mech.

It went on like this for awhile, them beating the energon out of each other but without actually landing anything that would leave lasting damage. They were both so focused on their fight, that they didn't notice when a small body poked his head around the end of the hall to see what was going on. They didn't even notice when he passed them in the hall and just snatched the Valentine in question right out of Jazz's hand and whisked it away.

"Wait a fraggin' klik!" Prowl eventually yelled, making Jazz freeze, one fist cocked back to just hit his friend in the face. "This is getting us nowhere!"

"True." Jazz said, but didn't lower his fist quite yet. Prowl could be sneakier than most people gave him credit for sometimes.

But when Prowl didn't move against him again, Jazz slowly relaxed.

"Just out of curiosity," Prowl said a moment later as they sat slumped against the wall, "how long did you think giving me that Valentine would work?" He asked Jazz next to him.

The other mech just shrugged. "Well I had to try," then he gave his friend another look and grinned crookedly, "although from the looks of it you've got more then enough Valentines now."

Prowl glared at him and stiffly left before Jazz could lose control over his laughter.

~^..^~

Down at the end of the hall, Bluestreak surreptitiously watched the two grown ups around the corner. They didn't seem to notice that he'd taken the Valentine, which was good, because he didn't want to find out what rules Prowl had against stealing pretty bits of paper.

_"He's got so many rules, I'm sure I've just broken a lot of them."_ The young bot thought as he looked down at Jazz's card. Clearly Cloudraker had made it. He always put that one thundercloud with the lightning bolt somewhere one his drawings. That and he had signed it.

"They must have made a lot of these things." He murmured softly to himself. "And yet not one for Jie Mei. I'd make her one if I knew how, but I don't, and I don't want to give her a bad one so what _can_ I do then…?" He had thought he could just give her this one, but Cloudraker had clearly marked 'To Jazz' on the front cover so that wouldn't work.

"I should probably just give this back then," Bluestreak murmured, glancing around the corner again.

But then he saw that Prowl was coming down the hall towards him and he suddenly lost his nerve, so he ran off to the relative safety of the mess hall instead.

~^..^~

Down the hall Bluestreak had abandoned, a very sticky, pink covered Prowl got to his feet with a rustle like a hundred paper birds leaping up and flapping.

"Where ya goin'?" Jazz asked from where he was still leaving against the wall. He hadn't bothered to get up yet.

Prowl held out his arms and purposefully looked down at the pretty decorative papers sticking to his frame. "To the wash racks. Why? Do you have something better I can do looking like some fluffy organic bunny rabbit?"

"Hide Easter eggs?" Jazz suggested helpfully.

Prowl slanted a glare at Jazz. "If she ever makes us go through _that_ again then I'm banning all organic holidays for_ever_." He said determinedly.

Jazz shrugged one shoulder in agreement, but his grin only grew wider. "Ya gotta admit though, that one was pretty funny. Our first organic holiday."

Prowl grimaced, remembering a very different story. "Our first organic nightmare." He countered.

"Ah now don't be that way Prowl," Jazz said as he pulled a knee up to his chest and casually slung an arm over it. He grinned as he pointed up at his now red and pink friend. "I bet if you had actually found one of those darn eggs, or even if you got a real card, you wouldn't be that way."

Prowl blew out an especially disbelieving snort. "Try me." He muttered sarcastically before walking away, occasionally shaking his foot to try and dislodge some of the paper restricting his movements.

Jazz started to grin sneakily as he watched Prowl leave a little trail of decimated Valentine's decorations in his wake.

"All right then…"

~^..^~

About a joor later, Prowl was spick, span, and returned to his normal black and white coloring. He was positively beaming – or at least as beaming as anyone had ever seen Prowl anyway – as he walked up to his office door and keyed in the pass code that only he and a few select others knew. He was so relieved to no longer be any shade of pink that he even thought of humming as he stood there. He didn't of course, but it wasn't often that Prowl entertained the idea in the first place.

All thoughts of humming left Prowl's processor when his door slid open.

Beyond the door, coating every available surface inside, was that wretched color _pink_.

"What-" Prowl stuttered. "How?" He demanded nonsensically.

"Hey there Prowler," Jazz said as he randomly appeared down the hall, "Nice to see you've regained your natural color again. That whole piñata look just wasn't working for ya man. Hey, you all right there?"

Prowl's optic twitched, a sure sign of things to come, as he wordlessly lifted an arm and pointed inside his office.

Jazz turned to look. "Whoa."

Inside Prowl's office, his inner sanctum so to speak, covering every surface, hiding every sign of order the tactician had strove to attain were those fragging _Valentines_.

_"I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense,"_ Prowl thought as he went into shock, _"First they coat every inch available in the city, then they cover every available bot, and now here they are again, in my very un-available office."_

Large swaths of red and white covered the walls, floor, ceiling, and even his _desk_. Hearts of all sizes and colors had been cut out and stuck across the walls, seeming to dance across the bigger plains of red and white as if they were pointing at the overly logical Prowl and laughing, "Nyah, nyah, nyah!"

But the so called icing on the oil cake was the large, looping letters painted across the back wall.

_X's and O's to our favorite XO! Love ~Your secret fan club!_

A large pink heart surrounded the words.

"Well," Jazz said with a laugh as he clapped Prowl on the shoulder, "it looks like you got some Valentines whether ya like 'em or not."

Prowl could feel his processor slipping even as he turned to face Jazz with a complete look of shock on his face. "You had something to do with this." He muttered.

Jazz looked slightly surprised. "Me? That's not even my handwriting. If I had ta hazard a guess I'd say it was Moonracer and Firestar messin' with ya."

"No, no," Prowl said with enough calm that suddenly Jazz knew that he should probably comm. Ratchet now to save himself some hassle, "I know it's their handiwork, but I also know that you had something to do with it. Put them up to it or something."

Jazz shrugged. "In that case I don't know what to say." He said.

Prowl noticed that he neither confirmed nor denied any involvement on his part with that sentence.

"I see," Prowl stated, "then if you will please excuse me?"

Jazz nodded, knowing what was coming next.

Prowl took a step forward, and immediately crashed to the ground, his optics flickering erratically.

"Oh boy," Jazz murmured as he commed Ratchet to come get Prowl. The medic wasn't long in coming and soon enough Prowl was being carried to the med bay where Ratchet would short out the glitch and get Prowl back on his feet in no time.

Jazz waited until he was safely in Ratchet's hands before leaving. He couldn't resist giving Prowl's office one more look before leaving though. He chuckled and shook his head before heading towards Optimus' office to tell him that Prowl would be a little late for his daily report.

Four femmes were standing around the next corner, talking softly and giggling as the harried tactician was led away.

They froze when Jazz stepped around the corner.

Jazz watched them a moment in return, waiting to see if they had anything to say to him. "Ladies," he lifted two fingers to his visor in a small salute and walked past them when they didn't say anything. He was just about through their midst when he added an even softer, "Nice job," before disappearing around the next corner.

Behind him, Jazz heard Moonracer, Firestar, Beta, and Greenlight's muffled giggles turn into all out laughter.

~^..^~

Bluestreak was on his way to give Jazz back his Valentine when he saw the mess of Valentines coating Prowl's office. Someone had left the door open and he stopped and stared at the quickly cut cards and femme-like writing on the wall.

After a long moment, a large smile grew onto the youngling's face.

"That's _it!_" He realized and ran off. He suddenly had lots to do before he returned the Valentine after all.

* * *

><p>n_n There's nothing like a best friend to drive you completely up the wall and land you in the med bay. :D It's like what they say about friends: Friends share their umbrella; Best Friends trip you, steal yours and scream "Run stupid run!" all the way back to the car. n_n;<p>

And was that a hint for an Easter thing? Possibly! I don't really know! The idea came to me as I wrote and it's giving me deliriously funny ideas of Prowl in a bunny suit...Mwuhahahaha!

Now! Next time we finally get to see what our little Valentine's Thief is planning to do with his haul. And Aria feels a little down in the dumps, although there might be some mechxfemme sweetness in their too...but I'm not telling which ones! ;3


	6. Chapter 6: Wall to Wall Valentines

*grumbles* stupid keyboard, I just wrote this top note thing and it deleted it! Grr...

But anyway, here's the latest little chapter of Attack of the Valentine's! I hope you like it! Thanks go to Birgitte LP, supergirlprime, littledhampir13, and Vivian Hale for their amazing/loads of reviews. Mrs. Mittens and I love you guys so much! Just like we love all of our readers out there! Air hugs! *mimes an air hug while Mrs. Mittens ignores me completely* n_n; So yeah, hope you like it, much love!

~^..^~

Attack of the Valentines!

(aka: Valentine's Shared)

~^..^~

Wall to Wall Valentines

~^..^~

There was really only one thing Aria didn't like about Valentine's Day and that was that it was completely miserable for single people.

_"It's like the national anti-holiday for people like me."_ She thought mournfully as she slowly walked along the hall towards the room she shared with 'Bee. Well, 'shared' was more of a loosely used term seeing as she sorta, kinda, maybe…lived in his cabinet.

Aria sighed deeply, hunching forward slightly as she plodded on. "Just perfect," she mumbled.

But then she mentally smacked herself. "Hey now, wait a minute. Just cut that out," she firmly ordered herself as she stood up straight and used the wall like a mirror to glare at herself, "You didn't tell them about Valentine's Day just so they could give us," she quickly shook herself, "_me_ cards. It was so they could color and be happy. And there I succeeded, so there."

It wasn't quite the pick-me-up she needed, especially once she noticed the slip into referring to herself in the plural, but it would have to do. And she really did like that the younglings got such a kick out of giving each other Valentines. It was cute.

_"Try completely adorable."_ Aria thought a little happier to herself as she smiled and continued walking towards her 'room'. "Come to think of it, where are the little guys? I haven't seen them since this morning and they've been so quiet since then…" Aria murmured to herself as she rounded the corner on her way to the living quarters. She had to pass the door to the mess hall on the way there, and it swung open as soon as it sensed her. She rolled her eyes at it.

"First it refuses to open, now it opens at every shadow," she muttered under her breath as she walked by the door, "Wheeljack strikes again."

She was about halfway past when eight little figures inside suddenly caught her eye. It was the younglings, all huddled around Bluestreak as the older mech explained something to them.

She grinned at them and changed direction. "Well speak of the devil, there you guys are. I was just beginning to wonder where you all were." Aria said as she walked over to them.

All eight of them jumped at the sound of her voice and whirled around.

"Jie Mei!" Fastlane practically yelled. He tried to think of something else to say, but couldn't think of anything. His optics shot side to side as he silently begged Cloudraker and Bluestreak for help. "What, uh, what are you doing here?"

Aria eyed the eight shifty looks of her younglings and immediately mistook it for guilty consciences. "Oh, nothing much," Aria said, playing it cool. "What are you all up to?" She asked slowly, eyeing them sternly.

"Oh, you know…" Bluestreak tried to say, "we're, uh-"

"Nuthing…" Skids and Mudflap drew out the word.

Aria didn't say anything, just eyed them until they started to fidget uncomfortably under her stare. It didn't take long before Cloudraker opened his mouth to confess.

Aria gave a small little victory smirk. They still couldn't fool her.

But she had celebrated too soon. "We were just-ow!" Cloudraker was cut off by Bumblebee's elbow in his side.

"We were just trying to think of a way to surprise Ironhide with his Valentine. Arcee made him one and she wants it to be a surprise." Bumblebee said quickly.

"I do?" Arcee asked him, sounding very confused. But her confusion miraculously disappeared at a sharp look from the yellow bot. "Oh! I mean, yeah, I do. He always knows when I'm coming and I'm tired of it!" She pouted in a surprisingly convincing manner as she stomped her little foot.

Aria's flat look never left them. "Uh-huh," she said slowly. _"They're sticking together. It must be big."_ She thought as her blue flicked to each one in turn. _"And they've somehow got 'Bee on their side over mine. That's never really happened before."_ She thought, a little worried now.

"So…" Aria let the word hang a moment, "you guys aren't…up to something then?"

Eight little heads shook 'no' at once, doing nothing to soothe Aria's suspicions.

"And you're not planning on using Sideswipe's jetpack to give Ironhide his-" she took a second to remember their excuse, "Valentine?"

The younglings shook their heads again.

Aria didn't feel any better. "Or Wheeljack's new industrial strength bonding agent?" She asked just to be sure.

Fastlane perked up. "Wheeljack's got a new kind of super glue?" He asked, excited.

Aria flinched slightly, but then quickly shot him a glare. "No."

From the look he shot his brother, Fastlane clearly didn't believe her.

_"Well that does not bode well…"_ Aria thought, and then realizing she had probably just caused more trouble then solved it with that little slip of the tongue, Aria pointed a stern finger at the lot of them. "Alright, I don't know what you all are up to, but there will be no jet packs or super glue involved, clear?" She demanded.

"Yes Jie Mei," they all mumbled.

"Or welders," Aria added, remembering when the others had welded Mudflap to the wall. Of course that had only been after he had literally begged for it for an orn, but still, the lecture they got on peer pressure after that had been worthy of the history books.

They all nodded along with some exasperated looks up at the ceiling. "Yes Jie Mei."

"And most importantly _no scissors_."

"But we need the scissors!" Val shouted before the others could hush him.

Aria fixed them with the well practiced glare of the older sister.

"We'll get Smokerunner to watch us!" Fastlane said quickly, giving Aria a pleading look.

Her eyebrows lowered over her eyes.

"Uh, and Cloudcover." Fastlane added, only now remembering that the last time his guardian Smokerunner had let them have scissors, half of Aria's clothes had end up in pieces on the floor. Of course that was when they had been like, two vorns old, but that didn't matter to Jie Mei. She was still mad about losing her only pair of jeans.

"Fine." Aria grudgingly conceded. "But if I hear even a whisper of another Wrapping Paper Incident then I am smelting the scissors!" She exclaimed fiercely.

The younglings all glanced at each other and found that they all believed her at least a little bit. "A-alright Jie Mei." Bluestreak finally spoke for all of them. "We'll be good, promise." He held up a hand.

The rest were quick to copy him.

Aria took in their overly sincere faces and wide, nervous, smiles, and knew that before the orbit was out, Prowl was going to come talk to her, probably covered in Valentines _again_.

She gave a deep, resigned, sigh. "Just don't hurt yourselves." She told them, visibly deflating, before turning back towards the door.

"We won't!" They called after her.

There was a long moment of silence as the younglings waited for Aria to disappear through the door. Skids opened his mouth to say something then, but Bluestreak quickly waved him silent. The older boy tilted his head, waiting until even Aria's footsteps were gone.

"Okay," he finally said when he was sure the coast was clear, "here's what we gotta do…"

~^..^~

Optimus Prime was going over reports in his office when Bumblebee came in. He looked up at the youngling over the data pad he was reading off of to see what he wanted, but Bumblebee just waved and then went about searching for something in the shelves that were set against one wall.

After several long cycles of muted shuffling, Optimus looked up from the one sentence he had read at least fifteen times and frowned over at the youngling.

"Bumblebee, what are you doing?"

Bumblebee paused in his noisily searching and looked over at Optimus. "I need scissors for Jie Mei." He said simply.

Optimus held in a sigh and pulled the scissors he had confiscated from Fastlane and Cloudraker out of a drawer. "Here," he said, holding them out, "now please go use them somewhere else."

Bumblebee smiled at him as he carefully took hold of the scissors. "Thanks Optimus!" He said cheerfully before dashing out of the room.

Optimus shook his head slowly at him before turning back to the report he was going over.

He only got through a few sentences before the door the door opened up again and Bumblebee reappeared. He glanced through the shelves again, but thankfully didn't touch the multitude of distracting object on it. Instead he walked up to the side of Optimus' desk and reached up as high as he could.

His fingers hardly reached the edge of the desk. Watching him out of the corner of his optics, Optimus vented a muted sighed before calmly reaching out and nudging the glue bottle he had confiscated from Skids and Mudflap close enough to the edge that Bumblebee could reach it.

Unaware of Optimus' interference, Bumblebee gave a gratified little, "Ah!" as the glue fell off the desk and into his hands. He rushed out the door again.

Slowly, Optimus managed to tear his optics away from the door so he could concentrate, again, on his work.

The door slid open again.

Optimus didn't even try reading the first word as he looked up in time to see Bumblebee head straight to the shelves and pull out a long sheaf of paper that, miraculously, Optimus hadn't confiscated from anybody.

Or at least, he tried to pull it out. The paper was trapped under a heavy box of scrap that Wheeljack had brought in, although _why _Optimus had no idea. The big mech watched flatly as Bumblebee frowned at the paper and then pulled at it again.

It didn't budge.

Bumblebee adjusted his grip on the paper and with a determined look on his face that Optimus knew only too well, the little bot pulled at the paper with all his might-

-and started a small avalanche as the paper knocked free a hundred pieces of un-wanted junk and sent them cascading down over the small bot.

With a sigh, Optimus climbed to his feet. "Bumblebee, what are you doing?" He asked again as he crouched down next to the youngling and pulled some of the bigger things away from the pile he now found himself sitting under.

Bumblebee shook some spare wires off of his head, setting off a new mini-avalanche that uncovered the rest of his head and shoulders.

"We're making something for Jie Mei," Bumblebee told him again, "and we needed the scissors and the glue, but I forgot that I wanted to make a card for Miss Ariel, so I had to come get some paper too."

Optimus brushed away the rest of the random stuff away from the youngling and helped him to his feet. "You mean one of these Valentines everyone keeps talking about?" He asked mildly. He had the ones the younglings had made him standing on his desktop, but he still only had a vague idea what they were for.

Bumblebee nodded, clutching the paper so that it wouldn't drag on the ground. "Uh-huh. She's nice and she reads me stories sometimes, so I'm going to give her a Valentine." He said simply, then looked over at the door. "Can I go now?"

Optimus shook his head but couldn't resist a small grin. "Yes, alright, just please try and stay out of here for the rest of the orbit. Alright?"

Bumblebee grinned up at him. "Alright." Then he darted towards the door for the third time in as many cycles.

But then strangely enough, he froze when he reached the doorway and seemed to think about something.

"Bumblebee?" Optimus frowned at the youngling in concern. "Did you forget something?"

Bumblebee looked over his shoulder at Optimus, as if he wasn't sure if he should do what he was thinking, but then he darted back across the room, completely ignoring Optimus, and snatched all of the Valentines off of his desk.

Then he darted out the door.

Optimus blinked after him. "I don't want to know." He decided.

He started back to his desk, but stopped when he stepped on something. He looked down curiously to see that it was some of the scrap metal Bumblebee had knocked over.

Sighing, Optimus bent down and gathered up most of the spare bits of metal and dropped them unceremoniously on his desk where they'd be out of the way.

"That boy," he muttered to himself as he went and sat down again, "he leaves a good natured mess of destruction in his wake." He said as he settled himself and picked up the data pad he had been reading over.

But even without Bumblebee's disturbances, Optimus found he couldn't concentrate. "I wonder what they're doing anyway…" he asked himself out loud. He gave a small laugh. "I'll probably find out soon enough."

He looked back at the data pad, but his attention soon started wandering again.

After some time, he gave up, and threw the data pad with a clack on his desk. It would still be there in ten cycles, and he hardly found Prowl's umpteenth write up of the twins for 'disrespecting authority' all that pressing. Doubtlessly, the SIC had them in the brig already anyway.

Instead Optimus found himself staring at the long pieces of spare metal scattered on his desktop. He frowned at one in particular thoughtfully, an idea growing in his head. He picked it up and turned it this way and that, wondering if it would work. He reached up and experimentally bent one of the broad, flattened parts grouped at one end of the stem. It gave way nicely, but didn't break off or lose its form.

He peered at the scrap metal another long moment, thinking.

"A Valentine for Ariel hmm?" He mused quietly to himself.

~^..^~

It was late in the orbit when Aria finally managed to drag herself out of bed again. After dealing with the younglings she had gone to lie down for a short nap, but had ended up sleeping through the rest of the day instead.

"Man," she groaned through a yawn, "I'm never gonna get to sleep tonight now. I'll end up turning nocturnal like some sort of bat-woman." She complained to herself as she went to go get a new bottle of insulin from Wheeljack. She had gone to go get something for dinner only to find that she was out of her medication. So here she was, walking all the way across the building, just for a tiny little vial.

"I really hate taking shots sometimes, no matter how essential they are." She mumbled sleepily as she turned towards the elevator that would take her to the floor where Wheeljack's lab was located.

"What are you doing Val? Leave it alone!"

Aria stopped as Cloudraker's hushed voice drifted towards her down the hall.

"But it doesn't look right!" Val hissed back.

"It looks fine guys. You lot did a fantastic job on this." One of the femmes, Moonracer Aria thought, spoke above the younglings.

"Yeah, she's gonna love it." Jazz's voice followed Moonracer's.

"Are we finally ready for her then? Is everybody here?" Bluestreak asked a little louder than the others had.

The murmured replies of a whole group of bots said that they were.

"Alright, I'm going to go find her then. All of you go hide-" he started to say.

At that moment Aria crept around the edge of the doorway. She had been creeping up the hall towards the voices as they spoke, careful to keep quiet the whole way.

She gasped when she saw the well lit room beyond the open door. It was beautiful, brightly lit to show off the mess of decorations that the younglings had been busy all day making. There was confetti and a few hearts hanging from the ceiling, but the most obvious was the long chain of paper that had been draped around the walls. Each of its links had been cut into the shape of the heart and then looped through the one next to it to form a long, pink and white chain.

The mechs and femmes standing in the room froze. Most of them just smiled when they realized she had already seen everything, but poor Bluestreak looked downright distraught.

"But-" he stuttered, staring at Aria with big blue optics, "but you're not-"

Jazz smiled and put a hand on the oldest youngling's shoulder. "Well the cyber cat's out of the bag now kid, just say it."

Bluestreak looked over at the silver mech. "Surprise." He grumbled.

"Surprise!" The other youngling's immediately yelled.

Aria laughed as they all came running towards her. "It's amazing guys! I love it!" She told them, going to hug and kiss each one of them, much to their delight. She had just managed to pin Fastlane with a quick peck on the cheek when she paused to get a closer look at the decorations that covered the walls. "Wait, is that…a Valentine?"

Arcee nodded happily. "Yep, they're _all_ Valentines." She told her proudly.

Aria looked around the room again, eyes growing wide as she realized all of the walls and good portions of the ceiling were covered with nothing but Valentines.

"Wow," she said appreciatively.

Somewhere behind her, Aria heard Prowl mutter, "I thought this looked distinctly familiar…" as he looked around the decorated room as well.

One of the closer Valentines caught Aria's eye in particular. "Does that say 'To Cliffjumper'?" She asked uncertainly.

The seven younglings nodded proudly. "Yep, we took them all back." Fastlane declared.

Aria stared at him. "You…what?" She asked, sure she had heard him wrong.

"We didn't have time to make new ones-" Mudflap told her.

"-so we just used the ones we'd made for everybody else instead." Skids finished.

"It was all Bluestreak's idea." Val said, clearly thinking this was the best idea he had ever heard in his short life.

Aria turned to the only youngling she hadn't hugged yet. "Is that true Blue'?" She asked.

Bluestreak's optics looked uncertainly at her. He nodded quickly before staring at the floor and fidgeting slightly.

Aria looked around the room again. "Stealing back Valentines for wallpaper. Interesting." She murmured.

Jazz suddenly cleared his vocal processor, making Aria look up at him. He jerked his head in Bluestreak's direction. "He worked real hard on it." He told her quietly.

Aria jerked slightly, realizing she hadn't even thanked her precious host yet. So she smiled at him lovingly and ran up to the small mech that had stayed in the background since she had walked prematurely into the room.

When she was right next to him, Aria smiled up at him. "Did you do all this for me?" She asked.

After a moment, Bluestreak nodded.

Aria grinned wider and hugged him too, or at least, as much as she could. "You're so sweet!" She told him loudly, but then added in a softer, heartfelt, voice that was just for him. "Thanks Blue'."

Bluestreak's optics flicked towards her and she saw some of the sting leave him. "You're welcome Jie Mei," he told her, and then added more uncertainly, "love you."

Aria grinned up at him. "Love you too Bluestreak." She said, and then waved him down so that she could kiss his cheek.

How could she have ever doubted them?

* * *

><p>*heart!* Bluestreak is so sweet! I just love him! Isn't he just a lil cutie? ^n_n^ (purrs a yes)<p>

Up next, the very last chapter of my little side story: OP has a gift for Ariel and Arcee finally gives away her own special Valentine. ;)


	7. Chapter 7: Best Friends

n_n Alright, here's the last one. I had so much fun with this story! And I love all your reviews! Now I'm already late enough as it is for class so...much Valentine's love to you!

Thanks go to Moment-Of-Reason, supergirlprime, littledhampir13, and annebellelennox for their lovely reviews. Hope you love this last chapter!

~^..^~

Attack of the Valentines!

(aka: Valentine's Love)

~^..^~

Best Friends

~^..^~

It wasn't long before Aria's Valentine's present turned into an all out party. They already had the decorations, they already had the guests. Then Jazz turned on some music and that was that.

The party was in full swing by the time Bumblebee ducked under the table. He was tired out from dancing with Aria so he had decided to hide out for a bit until he felt better. The last thing he wanted was for Aria or Optimus to catch him looking tired and send him off to bed. He'd miss all the fun!

From under the table Bumblebee watched as Aria started dancing with Val instead. At least she called it dancing. Really they were just spinning in circles and laughing.

Interestingly enough, Bumblebee found he kinda liked it under the table. He could see what everyone else was doing but no one ever noticed him because they never bothered to look down.

Over on the other side of the room the older twins were arguing like usual. Sunny was carefully looking at each Valentine that had been pinned to the wall.

"Dude would you relax. It's just a card." Sideswipe said as he spared an exasperated look at his brother.

"No," Sunny growled, "those little gremlins stole my Valentine and I want it back!"

Sideswipe shrugged. "It's not like anyone special gave it to you."

Bumblebee laughed at the dark look Sunstreaker shot his brother. "Shut up." He grumbled.

Sideswipe rolled his optics and suddenly noticed 'Bee crouched down under the table. He grinned at the youngling and pointed at the wall next to the one Sunny was inspecting. Bumblebee looked over and, with some more pointing from Sides', saw that Sunny's card was pinned up at the very top.

Bumblebee giggled. It hadn't been there before. He knew because he had hidden it behind the chain of hearts they had made for Aria, just in case Sunstreaker came looking for it.

Sideswipe grinned lopsidedly at the youngling and winked before motioning for 'Bee to keep the secret.

Bumblebee nodded and went on looking at the adults scattered around the room talking. Two of the femmes, Beta and Greenlight, were whispering conspiratorially near the twins. Occasionally they would look across the room at Prowl and giggle mischievously.

Prowl for his part just glowered back at them. Obviously he knew what they were talking about, although Bumblebee didn't have a clue. The femmes only laughed harder when they caught the black and white mech frowning at them.

The yellow youngling shook his head as he turned under the confines of the table. "Femmes are weird." He muttered. It was a fact that all the youngling mechs had acknowledged, although that one time Arcee had heard them she had yelled at them and then quickly fled the room when her voice turned raw, as if she was about to cry.

The little mechs had only stared after her and thought that she had in some small way proved them right.

"Maybe that's why Wheeljack is acting so weird too." Bumblebee thought out loud. The inventor was standing in the corner, his optics fixed on the room in front of him. But Bumblebee noticed that occasionally the mech's blue optics would flick carefully to the side.

Blinking in confusion, Bumblebee looked over to see what he was trying not to stare at, but it was only Moonracer.

The femme was standing in the next corner talking with Firestar. Well, really Firestar was talking with her, but Bumblebee thought that Moonracer was only half listening to her friend. She looked very distracted and her bright blue optics kept flicking towards Wheeljack as well.

As Bumblebee watched, their optics met. Both adults stiffened slightly, and the youngling was sure that if they had been anything like Aria they would have turned that funny red color like she did whenever someone embarrassed her.

Their shared glance only lasted a nanoklik before Firestar unknowingly broke it off.

"Hey are you listening to me Moon?"

"Huh?" Moonracer asked as she abruptly looked away from Wheeljack. "Oh, yeah of course. Now uh, what were you talking about again?"

Firestar vented a sigh. "Oh why do I even bother?" She mumbled to herself before starting over her explanation of the long range communications system that was giving her trouble.

Bumblebee just shook his head as Moonracer slanted another look at the inventor. Wheeljack was too busy staring dazedly off into space now though to notice her again.

"Maybe it's just adults that are weird." The youngling muttered. "That sure would explain a lot."

Bumblebee shuffled around to see the other side of the room. Ratchet was standing right behind him, narrowing his optics at Wheeljack, probably wondering what was wrong with his younger friend.

"Maybe that last blast left him with more of a concussion then I thought." He mumbled under his breath.

"Nah," Jazz spoke up next to him, "he's just got the fever Ratch'. Don't worry. I'm sure he'll do something about it eventually." The other mech laughed slightly.

Ratchet turned and frowned at the small mech. "What are you talking about? We don't get fevers."

Jazz chuckled again. "It's not that kinda fever Ratchet."

The old medic still had no idea what Jazz was talking about. "You're spouting nonsense." He groused. "I'll get Moonracer to talk to him. She can generally make sense of him."

Jazz just laughed again.

Bumblebee shook his head again as he turned towards the last wall. Jazz was always saying things that made no sense at first, but sometimes after you thought about it, things sorted themselves out. Maybe this was one of those times.

An open door was set into the last wall so there weren't as many bots over here. Just Ironhide and Chromia standing close together and talking in low voices so that Bumblebee couldn't make out what they were saying even when he tried. But he thought it must have been interesting because Chromia suddenly grabbed the gruff mech by his armor and pulled him out the door.

Bumblebee raised an optic ridge at the two as they disappeared. A crash came from the hallway a moment later, followed by Ironhide's booming laugh.

Optimus came in the door about then, looking over his shoulder in the direction Ironhide and Chromia had disappeared down. He shook his head as he stepped into the room and then looked around for somebody.

He did a double take when he realized that Ariel was standing only a few feet away from him. Then for some odd reason, he stared at the air ahead of him again, almost exactly like Wheeljack had been doing across the room. Bumblebee watched as his caretaker looked down almost nervously at the long, skinny box he was carrying under one arm. He fidgeted slightly with the ribbon he had wrapped around it.

As the youngling continued to watch, Optimus squared his shoulders and walked over to Ariel, offering the box. The femme looked up at him, slightly surprised, but she smiled as she took the box and said something to the large mech that Bumblebee didn't hear.

Tired of not being able to hear anything good, the youngling got up and ran across the room towards the two adults.

"-you shouldn't have." Ariel was saying as Bumblebee ran up to them.

"Yes, well, er," Optimus stuttered slightly and then thought it wise if he jut stopped talking then.

Bumblebee agreed with him, but was too busy standing up on the edge of his toes to try and see inside the box to say so.

He knew from the look that appeared on Ariel's face that it was something good.

"Oh my…" Ariel said softly in wonder.

"What?" Bumblebee jumped up and down but still couldn't see inside the box. "What is it?"

Ariel didn't answer him, but smiled as she reached in and pulled out, what Bumblebee knew from what Aria had told him about Earth, was a piece of metal fashioned to look like a long stemmed flower.

Ariel looked over at Optimus, still smiling. "It's lovely." She told him.

Over Bumblebee's head, Optimus and Ariel smiled at each other, sweetly, but with just a touch of trepidation too.

Bumblebee quickly got tired of the quiet. "I made something for you too Miss Ariel!" He cried excitedly near her feet, jumping up and down eagerly, unintentionally disturbing their loaded stare.

"You did?" The femme turned her attention to him with some slight difficulty and crouched down to be on his optic level. "What is it?"

Bumblebee reached into one of his internal compartments since he was still too young to use subspace like the older bots and pulled a card out victoriously.

"Here! Read it! Read it!" He cried, jumping some more as Ariel took the card.

Ariel smiled at his eagerness as she opened the card up. "'Miss Ariel is pink, but the sky is blue, I like that you're sweet, and tell me stories too,'" she grinned as she read the little poem out loud. "Well you are very welcome Bumblebee. I like reading you stories too." She told him.

Bumblebee fidgeted now, embarrassed. "Aria helped me with the words…" he murmured as he looked over at the table again.

"Well I still think you did an amazing job," Ariel said kindly, and then before the youngling could escape, she reached out and grabbed him to lightly shock him with a kiss.

"Eep!" Bumblebee squeaked and then squirmed until Ariel had to either put him down or drop him.

He stared at the femme a moment, and then caught sight of Arcee in the doorway and ran over to her in relief.

The two adults chuckled. "I think you embarrassed him." Optimus said.

"That was the point." She told him. And then after a moment's hesitation, she reached up a lightly pecked Optimus as well.

From the door Bumblebee saw his guardian stiffen slightly in surprise. "Yuck!" He said, wiping at his cheek to get rid of lingering feeling of the little kiss. Then a sudden thought occurred to him and he eyed Arcee nervously. "You're not going to kiss me too are you?" He asked suspiciously.

Up till now Arcee had been watching him nervously, but his question shocked her back into her more normal self. "What? No! Ew!" She cried, frowning at him slightly.

Bumblebee nodded once. "Good." Then he eased up. "So what are you doing over here?" He asked the femmeling after a moment.

Arcee blinked at him, then curiously enough looked away. Bumblebee noticed that she was wringing her hands slightly.

"Well…" the little femme said slowly, "I…uh, I mean that I…"

Bumblebee waited.

"Oh!" Arcee finally huffed, stamping her foot. "Just, come on!" She ordered, then she grabbed her fellow youngling by the arm and hauled him outside when he didn't move fast enough.

"Arcee what are you doing?" Bumblebee demanded. But the little femme didn't let go of him until they were a few feet away from the door.

"Here." Arcee said, almost defiantly as she shoved a piece of paper at him.

Bumblebee frowned slightly at the paper. "What is it?" He asked curiously.

Arcee held it out more. "Just read it!" She told him impatiently.

"Okay, okay, sheesh," Bumblebee grumbled as he took the paper and flipped it open.

"Dear Bumblebee" Bumblebee read out loud, "You are my best friend in the whole wide world. From Arcee." It took him a moment to realize what he'd just read.

"Oh." He said slowly.

Arcee had made him a Valentine.

"I made one for each of you," the little femme confessed quickly, fidgeting in embarrassment, "but I wanted to give you yours first."

Bumblebee blinked at her. He hadn't expected this.

"Well?" Arcee asked hesitantly after a long moment of silence. "Do, do you like it?"

Bumblebee didn't answer. He couldn't think of anything to say to her.

Instead he reached into the same compartment he had kept Ariel's Valentine in and pulled one more thing out.

"Here," he said, holding out the pink heart he had squirreled away while they had been decorating the room, "I saved it for you 'cuz it's the same color as your paint. I thought you'd like it." He said quietly.

Arcee watched him a cycle with wide blue optics before carefully taking the heart. Its edges were ragged from bad cutting and it had a crease down the center where he had folded it, but a small smile appeared on her face anyway.

"It's pretty." She told him.

And then without another word, or even a look at the other youngling, Arcee walked back towards the door, carefully holding her new heart.

Bumblebee quickly caught up with her.

"Hey Arcee?" He asked softly when they reached the door, making the little femme look up at him.

Bumblebee suddenly looked away nervously at the floor, only daring to look up at her when he'd screwed up every ounce of courage he had in him. "You're my best friend too." He whispered.

Arcee just smiled and lightly smacked his shoulder in a friendly way before walking back into the room. Bumblebee followed right behind her.

* * *

><p>Oooo! They're so cute! I just love them <em>all!<em> Hope you enjoyed the story even half as much as I did. ;D

Happy Valentine's Day!


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